The weather was perfect as the second annual 24 Hours of Adrenalin got under way on the September 18-19 weekend. Set in the San Bernardino Mountains one and half-hours outside of LA, at the beautiful Hurkey Creek Park, people arrived Friday afternoon and turned the park into a tent and RV city within a matter of hours. The 1000 plus people in attendance were ready for a weekend of camping, fun and of course lots of mountain bike race action.

The event got under way Saturday at noon and was host to 420 riders making up over 90 teams. The 1000 people on hand lined the LeMans start course where a rider from each team has to run a quarter mile to their bike before heading out onto the course. The start is one of the biggest highlights of the event, it really gets the adrenaline pumping and how appropriate considering it is the 24 Hours of Adrenalin. After the start the next biggest highlight is night riding. With the beginning of the fall season and shorter days, riders experienced almost 11 hours of darkness. You can see the lights of riders spread across the mountain making it almost easier to spot riders at night.

The event this year in Southern California not only brought returning riders to a different camping venue, but also to a new course one of which had never experienced a mountain bike race or event. This pristine course set 4000 feet in the high desert offered an exciting array of technical climbing, sweeping single track and fast downhill stretches. The course was technical, challenging, but fun. People commented on how much they loved the course whereas the solo riders found the hills to suck a lot of power from their legs after 10 hours of riding.

Some of the interesting teams on hand were; the "Sexy Generians" who competed in the corporate category (6-10 people), the average age of the team was over 60 years old. Five Women and a Baby competed and placed second by less than a minute in the All-Female category. One of the teammates was 3 months pregnant and she sprinted the last leg of the race to try and take first place. She made up considerable time but fell short by 30 seconds. The publisher of Mountain Bike Action magazine, Richard Cunningham and crew competed in the 4 Person category, placing second in their first 24 Hour event and commented on how much they loved the event and swore to come back next year and take first place. Other participants on hand were the renowned solo endurance riders such as Greg Blackwell (Gary Fisher) at the young age of 21 took first place which put him in the overall lead in the Solo Point Series over Jon Kirschke (Power Bar). They met again in Georgia on the Olympic course on October 2-3 to determine the season champion. Chris Kostman of LA came second by riding an incredibly consistent race and passing local boy Morgan Foster in the last 300 yards of the event pushing Morgan into third place. Local Master Endurance rider Wendy Skean took home first place in the women's solo division followed by Carol Silvera.

After the event most people stayed and enjoyed the warm afternoon and the traditional post race pasta party, awards ceremony and prize drawing. Teams finishing in the top three in each category were rewarded for their efforts with prizes and the winners also received special winner's jerseys. The prizes included the rest of the riders and spectators. People were awarded for simply having the right ticket or stupid human tricks, best scars, best tattoos, handstands and one-armed push up contests. All in all the event was a great success. Can't wait till next year.