THE Royal Dean Forest Cycling Club (RDFCC) travelled down to Devon on Saturday 25th July for the Bontrager Twenty Four 12 mountain bike race.

After hearing “Bontrager is the best, you won’t want to do any other endurance races” Team RDFCC accepted the challenge and Jared Linden (pictured below right), Jon Batts, John Linden and Adam Taylor travelled to Newnham Park on the edge of Plymouth to take part.

There was no rain at the start, but the forecast for later in the event was poor.

Jared Linden lined up for the start leg, his mission was to pass the 80 or so competitors who appeared to have camped on the start line and complete the lap in first place.

Jared had made up quite a few places early on and finished the first full loop in the top 10, completing a great start.

Next out was Adam with a slow but steady lap in slippery conditions, thanks to the rain the week before. Adam was followed by John and Jon.

During the late afternoon to early evening, the course dried out considerably as the mud was washed aside and quicker lines were formed through the rooted sections of the track.

With a few laps under the team’s belts, they began to get into the flow and rhythm of the course.

Heading into the night each rider double stinted their laps (which were between 12-14km long and all off-road).

This gave the rest of the team a longer break to catch a few moments’ sleep during the arduous event.

A shower hit the area at 4am and the team switched back onto single laps as daylight broke.

At 6am, the rain began properly and continued for the rest of the race which saw the team finish 22nd out of 62.

With Team RDFCC competing in the 24 hour race, club members Ant White and Iwona Szmyd raced in the 12 hour competition and won the mixed pairs category.

Visit the websites www.twentyfour12.com or www.rdfcc.org.uk for more.