@Trainerroad 24HOP race team, I asked on today’s podcast (4 October, 2018) if you were planning on having a support person/crew for the race. I didn’t get into the race this year and the dates remain open on my calendar. Having supported RAAM solo racers in 2017 and 2018 as well as racing on 24 hour MTB relay teams in the past, I think it would be a blast to support the TR team at the 24HOP.
And this gets me out of the Northern Idaho winter for a few days 
Be Well and Stay Healthy!
I listened to the podcast about the 24 hour. Found it really interesting about how hard you where looking to go. The main 24 hour 4 (also two) is Nurburgring in Germany. I would suggest that you can go as hard as you like, as the 4 hours between efforts if you use recovery drinks plus some solid food, and get one sleep cycle in (around 90 minutes) between each session you should be almost fully recovered. You also mentioned not sweating, this should not be a problem, get back, strip and get warm. Then use clean kit.
You also talked about doing double laps, we only do this when riding 24 stuff as pairs as it gives the other rider time to get a sleep cycle in during the night. However this takes a real toll on the lap times because you start running out of carbs even when taking gels (limits to 60g carbs across the gut an hour, most drinks that use fructose allow you to get 90g across add caffeine and it becomes 110g, although caffeine should be limited to around 11 hours)
We also use this strategy in RAAM but have shifts of either 8 or 6 hours between 2 people, where we ride between 30 - 60 minutes each and then hydrate, carb up in the time between shifts.
I think most of your team is fairly young (sub 50) so they will be able to absorb food and repair muscles faster than older people.
You also talked about lights and not wanting to carry battery packs, we always use Exposure lights, they are not cheap but they are good.
Brian
Brian,
Great information! Thank you
Gordon – you’re the best! We’ll be dialing in all of those details soon, so I’ll keep you posted 
I will preface my comment, by saying that I don’t have any personal experience with these types of ultra endurance relay races. You sound like you have a lot of personal experience with this.
However, I think the question you need ask is not whether the second lap of a back-to-back session will be as fast as someone fresh riding the second lap, but whether that second lap is faster than the lap you would otherwise have to do later in the race.
For example, lets assume that a 4 man team will complete 20 laps total over the course of the 24 hours. If you alternate in order the entire time it looks like this:
| Lap 1 | A |
|---|---|
| Lap 2 | B |
| Lap 3 | C |
| Lap 4 | D |
| Lap 5 | A |
| Lap 6 | B |
| Lap 7 | C |
| Lap 8 | D |
| Lap 9 | A |
| Lap 10 | B |
| Lap 11 | C |
| Lap 12 | D |
| Lap 13 | A |
| Lap 14 | B |
| Lap 15 | C |
| Lap 16 | D |
| Lap 17 | A |
| Lap 18 | B |
| Lap 19 | C |
| Lap 20 | D |
Each person gets 3 laps off before their next lap and there are approximately 20-21 hours between each person’s first lap and their last lap.
If you can do doubles then your order could look something like this (this is just something I quickly put together…there is probably a more efficient way to organize it):
| Lap 1 | A |
|---|---|
| Lap 2 | B |
| Lap 3 | B |
| Lap 4 | C |
| Lap 5 | A |
| Lap 6 | A |
| Lap 7 | D |
| Lap 8 | B |
| Lap 9 | B |
| Lap 10 | C |
| Lap 11 | C |
| Lap 12 | D |
| Lap 13 | A |
| Lap 14 | A |
| Lap 15 | D |
| Lap 16 | B |
| Lap 17 | C |
| Lap 18 | C |
| Lap 19 | D |
| Lap 20 | D |
Here, the gaps between runs range anywhere between 3 to 6 laps and there are always longer breaks before double laps. The big advantage is that there is only 17-18 hours between the first lap and last lap for each rider. C and D have a lot more time to sleep/rest early in the day and A and B wouldn’t have to worry about sleep deprivation issues later in the day.
You may be able to replenish carbs between laps, but you’re not going to actually “recover” in any real sense of the word (i.e., repair the muscle damage caused by each lap). By the end of the 24 hours you’re going to be fighting off inflammation big time. I think there is potentially an advantage in shortening the window that each rider is active to make it easier to keep going.
Your ideas sound good in theory, but they don’t work, as the second lap is always much slower than the first.
I would also suggest that the sleep in the 3 hours between laps, (1.5 hours which is one sleep cycle) stop any sleep deprivation, as if the riders arrive rested and then get 6 hours sleep, or even 4.5 if they don’t sleep before their first laps they should be fine. It is a skill being able to eat and sleep as soon as you are off the bike, but for these sort of races a skill worth practicing.
As I mentioned, as a pair we did double laps in the middle of the night, to allow sleep and extra nutrition. Even in RAAM which is considerably longer, my wife and I managed on 3 hour shifts when we did it as pair, to allow for one sleep cycle between shifts.
However I would be really interested if you tried your suggested shifts and proved that they worked. B
I guess I’m not sure why a two hour shift would necessary be that much slower than a one hour given the IF they’ll probably target. Each rider is looking at 8 hours or so of total riding time over a 24 hour period. I can’t imagine their IF on any given lap would go over .75 or .8 (I could be completely off here…). Seems like that would be a pretty realistic pace even over a 2 hour period.
In your experience what kind of Intensity Factors do you typically shoot for on a 24 hour race?
Great analysis! The specific rules of the 24 HOP wouldn’t allow the second scenario. Every rider needs to ride once before a rider can ride a third lap. You could have doubles for a rider but before that rider can ride again, all the other team members would have to go for a lap.
Always a good idea to read the rules 
Thanks Ubacha!