[Closed] 12 hr solo Vs 24hr pairs?

You can wear contact lenses for 24 hrs, or more. My optician laughed at me when I talked to him about this. (He's a MTBer himself.)

The most I've done was a 12hr pairs, and we did single laps the whole way, which is the fastest method, but unrelentingly grim. Doing it in longer shifts is so much nicer.

Assuming 30-45 minute laps, I'd do doubles. You've hardly got time to change and eat otherwise. I've done it a few times. You can ride far harder than 12 hour solo as long as your stints aren't too long.

Double lap stints mean you actually get some meaningful recovery between stints, single laps are brutal especially for 24 hours. If the lap is short, consider triples maybe. You won't see each other much - it's oddly lonely - so talk about possible scenarios in advance and have a whiteboard handy at basecamp to leave messages for each other - it's hard to be aware when you've just battered yourself silly.

I always find pacing hard. You need to be quicker than most solo riders, but avoid the temptation to chase fast team ones.

After a stint on the bike, wet-wipes, clean kit, refuel, check bike over and adjust anything that's out and, suddenly you're back at the start/finish again... I always find fresh kit a morale booster as much as anything.

Have a think about what you do if one of you is much quicker than the other. It's possible to get into a sort of spiral of death where running equal laps, the slower rider gets less rest and gets slower, while the quicker rider gets more rest and goes faster again... eventually the slower one blows up. Less of an issue if you're evenly matched.

Oh, and if your mate decides he can't manage to do his final stint, leaving you out there for an extra lap or two, pray that he has the foresight to bring a fresh water bottle over when he appears at the finish line to tell you. Don't ask how I know etc.

I reckon 24 pairs is harder than 24 solo fwiw. You go faster and never quite have long enough to recover regardless of how long you have 🙂

Pick your team mate carefully - the best motivation you can have is not wanting to let each other down.

and single laps are faster but much harder to keep churning out, psychologically.

Single laps during the day when you have the most energy and the visuals are easy for you to smash some fast laps.

As soon as its lighting up time your Laps will get slower.  Revert to double laps giving your partner adequate time to rest up and feed during the natural circadian cycle.  At dawn its smash laps again.

Double laps feel more relaxed just because the in between laps stuff is less frantic

You really need to have a well understood handover plan because unless you are being quite casual about it (admittedly my preference when doing these thing) you won’t talk much. If you are doing doubles and can camp near the course then that’s super handy for letting your team mate know things like “I am on a flyer/suffering” at the end of the first lap.

Do all your eating, kit sorting etc as soon as you are done with a lap because unless you have a support person it’s surprising how quick the time slips away.

And yeah, it’s hard.

Cheers.

With twentyfour12 we are in the Celtic corner and always get a great spot for spotting and preparing for the incoming rider. Other lad is faster than me but I've more stamina and better at pacing (we do about the same number of laps with me in 12 and him in 24).

Whiteboard and rough plan is great idea, plus supplies for each lap not each person's expected stint, cheers.

Never thought about that on the night laps kryton, will give it a practice go, i'm normally Mr reliable on laps but using the night to take it handy makes sense as we are in it for ourselves.