Saddling up for 24 hour bike race

A CYCLIST is saddling up for a 24 hour mountain bike endurance race just a few weeks after completing a 90-mile event.

Nigel Snape, of Romiley, will be tackling the Sleepless In The Saddle event just a few weeks after completing the mountain bike race in Wales.

The 43-year-old came 4th in his age category in the three-day Bearded Man event which sees competitors cover 2,400 metres of ascent through the Brecon Beacons.

“It was a total mud-bath because of all the rain we’d been having and some of the pathways were so steep I had to carry my bike up them,” said Nigel, a master technician at Mangoletsi Alfa Romeo dealership in Knutsford.

Nigel is now preparing for the Sleepless In The Saddle event on August 4 and 5, which he will complete as part of a duo cycling alternate eight mile off-road laps over 24 hours.

“There’s no time to sleep in an event like that and fitness comes second, it’s as much about mental strength as physical strength,” said Nigel.

“I have been training by riding to work at Mangoletsi in Knutsford, which is 20 miles from my home in Romiley, and by cycling for up to six of seven hours at the weekend.”

This will not be the first time Nigel has completed a 24 hour race – last year he took part in the 24 Hours of Exposure UK Solo Mountain Bike Championship.

He has also won the 100k Tour of Pendle, came third in the Dirty Dozen 12 hour non-stop race through Gizburn Forest and completed four of the Tour de France Etape mountain stages –g aining silver medal time in his age category in 2010 on the Tourmalet mountain top finish.

Nigel has just returned from watching the Tour de France which was won for the first time by a British man, Bradley Wiggins.

“I never thought I would see the day a British man won the Tour de France,” said Nigel.

“It is such a massive achievement, these cyclists are in a different league to everyone else. I won a silver medal for the Etape stage I completed and I was about three hours off their pace so it shows how hard they have to work.

“I did see Bradley Wiggins in the village just before the start of one of the stages and I wished him good luck.”