What's the CRAZIEST cycling race you've heard of/done?

matbarbour

Matt Barbour here again, Contributing Ed...doing another list piece (like the hill climbs) on the above topic and would love any input from the CP massive...anything that makes you have to read the spec twice, from Race Across America to variations on LeJog, to cyclng the Nurburgring in Germany (http://www.nuerburgring.de/english/raci ... -ring.html)...anything, anywhere that seems truly nuts. As long as it entails some form of cycling somewhere along the line, it works for us..what have any of you done or heard of that you think fits the bill?? thanks, matbarbour@gmail.com

dulldave

The Big Ben Nevis Triathlon has always seemed kinda crazy to me:
http://www.nofussevents.co.uk/event/The ... hlon/1029/

matbarbour

Fantastic - the No Fuss team certainly seem to be behind a few corkers...have you done it?

deal

is this road only? if not then the list would not be complete without the great divide race

matbarbour

I think there should be some element of road in there...this is for CP, so I think the readers might expect it! But good tip, though...

moorjohn

'mildly eccentric': Fred Whitton (unless you're a cat1/E who lives in Cumbria)

'odd twitchy behaviour': any audax ride which cuts into sleeping time

'don't catch their eye': anyone who's done London-Edinburgh-London audax

(the above is where my wilder fantasies peter out)

'don't go there': there is an old issue of Aravais (think - uk audax mag) on the AUK site with a description of the 'D': Dover-Landsend-JohnOGroats-Dover. Attempted solo in a week by a guy whose name escapes me. It's rather well-written + I'd be fascinated to read an interview with him.

moorjohn

Bum. You'll have spotted that none of the above are actully races.

:oops:

apologies.

Wd still like to read the interview though.

chriskempton

Double deca ironman triathlons?

That's 48 miles swimming 2,240 miles cycling and 524 miles running.

Count me out

knedlicky

matbarbour wrote:

Matt Barbour here ...doing another list piece on the above topic and would love any input from the CP massive...anything that makes you have to read the spec twice, from Race Across America to variations on LeJog, to cyclng the Nurburgring in Germany ... As long as it entails some form of cycling somewhere along the line, ...what have any of you done or heard of that you think fits the bill?

What’s so crazy about cycling the Nurburgring? It’s just a circuit used once a year for races and endurance events, both on bikes and in running shoes. Maybe you mostly mean the 24-hour race? I have a work colleague who did that about 2005, as part of a 2-man team.
There are a few photos from the 2008 event on the Flickr page of official Everton FC photographer, Tony McArdle. I met him last Winter before a match at Goodison Park and he told me he didn’t take part but went along to help, when his mate did the race, as single starter. I don't know his mate.

For several years I used to take part in a summer cycling biathlon, i.e. riding a small circuit of 7.5 km incl 50 m climbing, then 10 shots at an indoor shooting range, then the bike circuit again, then another 10 shots. Because there were only 4 shooting lanes, the about 60 participants were started at intervals, like in a time trial. Everyone’s total time was stopped, to which was added a penalty of about 18 secs for each shot which missed the target.

These next may not count if you want the cycling to be ‘road’, but anyway:

I’ve taken part in a winter duathlon, 5/22/2.5 km, where the routes were through snow, maybe 6-8" hard-packed in the case of the (mountain-)bike leg, 10-12" loose snow on the running stretches.

In my present cycling group there is a guy who for many years took part in the Dolomitenmann event. This is a 4-man team event in Austria where the 1st team member runs 1700 m up the mountain, the 2nd paraglides back down to the valley (including an obligatory stop at a set point halfway down), the 3rd kayaks a marked-out slalom course for over 1 km heading upstream along a river, and the 4th rides a mountain bike 12 km along a rough track which climbs 1300 m – so quite some event!
Although the guy nowadays regularly rides a road bike, in this event he wasn’t the cyclist in his team, but the paraglider.

There’s a series of evening (floodlit) winter mountain-bike events at Davos in Switzerland, downhill races on a course on the ski slopes. The course has steep-sided curves and several jumps, so is similar to those courses used for snowboard races, except the bike course length is longer.
Like in the snowboard races, each event is a knock-out competition, the riders going off in groups of 4 and the first 2 to finish qualifying for the next round. The final 4 finalists of each event in the series qualify for the Grand Final on an evening towards the end of the skiing season.

teagar

Bit obvious bit Paris-Roubaix is still a crazy bike race. (The professional Paris-Roubaix that is). Most riders fall off at some point. Hitting the Arenburg at 50kph? Nutters.

drenkrom

Easily the local rat races/courrier races. The bike courriers have been more and more open on letting other crazy riders in on their underground races on packed streets, and the result is some absolutely mad racing with no such things as rules. All massively illegal, of course...

Any triathlon above an Ironman is also pretty nuts.

ju5t1n

I once did the London to Brighton on a bmx, not a good idea in retrospect

GyatsoLa

The annual bike courier get together has some nutty (and sometimes very dangerous) races.

The Tour d'Afrique is pretty extreme by all accounts.

andrewgturnbull

Time for something a little different:

Last weekend's Bridge of Allan Highland Games - I'm in the Black/Red strip.

Cheers, Andy

drenkrom

Are those all fixies, Andy? That looks like a nice balancing act.

Anonymous

Without doubt the RATA....invitation only to super mentally ill atheletes...have a look:-

http://www.raceacrossthealps.at/index,lang__en.html

Bonkers!

andrewgturnbull

drenkrom wrote:

Are those all fixies, Andy? That looks like a nice balancing act.

Yup - old track bikes with narrowish cylcocross tyres.

emadden

There are some crazy races in Switzerland, such as the Radmarathon - 720km in 2 days (RAAM) qualifier... The Alpenbrevet (7000m climbing over 270km - some horror climbs).

Jez mon

OK, obviously, they are no where near as bad as they used to be, BUT the grand tours have got to have a special place in any article about crazy races, especially the early tours.

Le Commentateur

Three Peaks!

Though there's a penny farthing race somewhere in Australia that looks rather mad.

*edit* -- http://www.evandalevillagefair.com/

paulcuthbert

There's a competition for how many times you can climb Mont Ventoux in 24hours. I think the record is 11

k-dog

The Fargo Street Hill Climb always seemed crazy to me.

http://www.lawheelmen.org/fargo.htm

likewoah

ride_whenever

is it idabike? the cross alaska race, and the transiberian road race are both completely insane.

The mega is insane too but not as mad as the above.

synchronicity

Hotter 'N Hell ?

http://www.hh100.org/ :twisted:

daviesee

The Cent Cols?

100 cols in 10 days.

Sounds like an amazing sportive. Don't think I'll ever have the fitness

http://centcolschallenge.com/

barriecusvein

Bordeaux-Paris always struck me as completely nuts

synchronicity

Has the Paris Brest Paris already been mentioned:

http://www.paris-brest-paris.org/EN/index.php

paulcuthbert

knedlicky, i love your username!! One of my favourite foods, especially with some Kuře na paprice