A few weeks ago we had the Pedal Prix 24 hour race. Pedal Prix is where you basically lie in a bike and pedal around a track like a normal bicycle. I did it last year too and it was so fun so I knew what to expect this year. Last year we had a team of Grade 6′s and 7′s but this year there were so many Grade 7′s that wanted to do it that we had a team of 16 Grade 7′s. We have been practising every Sunday at Victoria Park Racecourse and the race was at Sturt Reserve at Murray Bridge. We went from 12 noon on Saturday through to 12 noon on Sunday.
I got up in the morning at about 5:45am to have a shower and get ready. We were aiming to leave at about 7:00am. Once mum and I were all ready we got in the car to be at Murray Bridge at 8:00am. When we arrived it was a lot easier than last year to find our way in. Last year there were some fences up and we kept getting stuck and having to turn around and go back but this year we just went in and followed the road around and parked. At the gate when we paid, we were given a green wristband which showed that we had paid to get in and we had to wear it for the full 24 hours. We left everything in the car and just went down to our school tent. For a while there were just four of us there – Brandon, Erin, Amelia and I. We went out on the track and just threw a ball around for a while.
Later, some more people got there. We had been told to get to the track at about 8:00am because the gates close at 9:00am so we wouldn’t be able to get out car in. At 10:00am we were going to go for a walk around the track to point out things and talk about tips on the track. We all got given orange wristbands which showed we were riders. After we had got sick of throwing the ball around, we just sat under the school tent for a while, whilst more people arrived and set up their tents. I was sleeping in my friend Rachael’s caravan since there was enough room for her, her dad, my mum and me to all sleep in. She had other commitments in the morning so she wasn’t arriving until later, the same as Nick.
Soon there was almost our full team there. Most of us had taken our iPods so we all sat and played Truth or Dare as a group on them or played games at the same time. We were doing that when it was 10:00am and we stayed in the tent for a bit whilst the team manager (Mr. Smith) and some of the parents that helped out a lot (Craig, Greg) spoke to us about a few different things. We then went for a walk around the track and pointed out some of the things that we could use to explain where we are on the track. While we were in the bike we would have a radio so we could communicate with the parents and other people in the pits.
When we got back we sat back in our circle and just hung around the tent until the race kicked off. Erin was starting the race in the bike so she took the bike up to the start line and got in it there. They did the first slow lap with the course car in front and we waited for Erin to come round to cheer her on for her first lap. We stayed in the tent after that and carried on playing Truth or Dare off the iPods. The groups we had were -
- A – Erin Tori Hayley Olivia
- B – Charlotte Amelia Connor Seb
- C – Millie Emily Clarrie Rachael
- D – Nick Wylan Hannah Brandon
The times we had were:
- A – 12pm, 4pm, Midnight, 8am
- B – 1pm, 6pm, 2am, 9am
- C – 2pm, 8pm, 4am, 10am
- D – 3pm, 10pm, 6am, 11am
As you can see I was in Group C. By the time I was getting a bit bored of Truth or Dare, it was almost my turn in the bike. At 10:00am we had been told about where we needed to stand before getting in the bike and they had changed the side we stood on from the 6 hour race so it was all a new procedure for everyone. Millie came into the pits and I was ready to get in the bike. As I was getting in, the drink bottle holder broke so I didn’t have my drink bottle in the bike but it didn’t really matter because I was only going to be on the track for 15 minutes.
I started riding and it was useful having done it last year because I knew the track pretty well. I started riding and it was all going well. I got up to crash corner and went around the sharp corners. There is about a crash every minute at crash corner, that’s how dangerous the corner can be! I went under Bridge 1 and reported in the radio and then got to Bridge 2 and did the same. It was all going very normal and I hadn’t been touched by another bike. I went past crash corner again and just rode normally like all the other riders. I carried on riding but then a marshall waved a red flag. The yellow flags mean slow down and the red ones mean pull over and just stop on the track where you are. I wasn’t quite sure what the red one meant at that point and everyone else was just slowing down so I followed them. People then yelled out to us to stop so we did that. It was SO warm and everyone else was boiling hot from their shifts and I was pretty sure I was going to be just as warm as them.
I stopped right in the sun and just waited for a bit. I was talking in the radio to my mum, Craig, Greg, Adrian and Mr. Smith about what happened and they asked me where I was. I hadn’t really been paying attention to where I was, I just wanted to make sure I did the right thing. I told them I was at “the big bend” because I didn’t quite know anything else, I was just at a big bend! There was a small patch of shade just up ahead and some girls off the track asked me if I wanted to go into it to keep out of the sun. I did and I was sitting next to a girl in a bike that was one of the really fast schools with a really fast bike. I spoke to her for a bit about the race and normal stuff and then we heard an announcement on the loud speaker and they said that the wind had blown down some barriers. The wind had been REALLY strong all day so it wasn’t surprising.
About 30 seconds after the announcement Craig and Adrian appeared and they had come and found me. They said that they were doing “running repairs” and they had tools and things to fix the drink bottle holder. They came with my drink bottle too so I could have a drink after riding and being stuck in the sun. They fixed the holder and then went back to the school tent and I kept my drink bottle in there. As soon as the race was back on I told them in the radio and they told me to go straight back to the pits. I got back in the perfect time to change over and the time we should have been changing over. When I got out of the bike I went and sat down around the big table set up outside Rachael’s caravan where there were chairs set up all around and the place for chilling. It had a shade tent over the top which was good because it was so hot and sunny.
Mr. Smith was going around with the video camera and he came to Amelia and I when we were sitting down and we had to talk about what it was like in the bike because the footage would be played at assembly. I went back down to the school tent and played Truth or Dare with the others. After a while we went down to the courts and playground. We spent most of our time down there last year. We played Basketball for a bit and we divided ourselves into two teams. We played for quite a while and then went to the playground. They had these exercise machines last year and we all played on them again this year. They’re quite fun to play on.
We went back up to the camping site and tent after a short time on the playground. We hung around the tent for a while and lots of people were missing. A few people thought they were at crash corner and I’d wanted to go down there anyway so Connor and I went for a walk down to crash corner. There are no pits around crash corner (for obvious reasons) but there are some after it. Instead of pits, there are barriers and the barriers have people standing behind them at all times, watching crashes. We walked up there but no one from our school was there. We spent a while there anyway watching a few crashes. It was quite a walk from our pits to crash corner and if you want to walk slowly which is what we feel like most of the time then it takes about 10-15 mins. When we had seen enough crashes, we walked back because Connor had to be back for his ride at 6:00pm and we were told to get back a while before our rides.
When we got back, there was still no sign of the others still. I sat down with the people in the tent and lay down. They all had jokes on their ipods and were reading them out. I was really tired and I just lay down in the tent outside the circle not really listening to them. Some of the other people then came into the tent and we asked where they’d been and they’d just been in their own tents and things. We all sat in a circle telling jokes for a bit while riders would go in and out of the bike (all except me who was being unsociable!)
Not long after, a few of us left and walked up to where the parents were sitting at the table. A few of us were standing around not knowing what to do so Brandon said that we should listen to music in his car. We all thought it was a good idea so Clarrie went to get some CD’s to put on. Brandon, Clarrie, Millie and I went and sat in Brandon’s car and put the music up really loud. We played Truth or Dare at the same time. My brother who had come up for the day came and sat in the car for a bit and soon after left. Tori came up because she had just finished her shift in the bike and joined in with the game. She then had to go and Charlotte came up because she had just finished hers.
We then decided to go down to the courts before dinner. Rachael and Nick arrived at about 6:00pm. They arrived and Rachael’s stuff was all set up so she came straight down to the courts with us but Nick still had to pitch his tent and things like that. We went down and spent what felt like ages down there. We could still see what we were doing even though it was starting to get dark. We played Basketball for the whole time and then decided to start heading up because it was almost dinner time. They had ordered pizzas for the team and parents and we had been told that at 6:30pm we would have dinner in the schools tent. When we got back to the camping site we headed down to the tent but then got told the pizzas would be outside the caravan. That would be a lot smarter than having them in the school tent because there would be way more room. They took some down to the pits for the pit crew and the riders down there.
After dinner we all went back down to the schools tent for just hanging out because there was nothing else we could do. We were just sitting there and the numbers would go down and down as people would leave to go to bed depending on what time their shift in the middle of the night was. We had been told to stay and watch the rest of our group because if we all left and something happened where the rider had to come in, there wouldn’t be someone there ready to take over. Soon it was almost 8:00pm. I had done a swap with Millie because my mum was marshalling and the time she was meant to be marshalling was the time I would be in the bike and the parents had to be in the pits while their child was riding. I would be riding at 8:00pm.
Seb came into the pits and I got into the bike. I set off and went to the end of the pits. The marshalls at the end of our pits from 8:00pm – 12:00am would be from our school and when I went out in the bike Amelia’s mum and Hayley’s dad were doing the marshalling. When I went past I heard them say that the headlight wasn’t working. I was fairly sure I’d seen it working when Seb had come into the pits so I reported in the radio what they had said but I didn’t get an answer. I said “did you hear me?” but still didn’t get an answer.
I carried on riding and reported in the radio the normal things like where I was on the track but didn’t always get an answer. We had been having a bit of trouble with the radio earlier with it not always working. I rode past our pits and I heard my mum say in the radio “you didn’t tell me you were going under Bridge 2″ and I said “yes I did.” I then told her about the light not working for the third time and it was the first time she’d heard me say it. They said that they would check the next time I went around. The next time I went round, they checked and said it was fine. When I got back in the pits and in the tent I explained about the light and they said if you look at it from the side, you can’t see it working but if you look at it from straight ahead, it works. I heard them say that lots of marshalls had been reporting that bike #222 (which is us) has the headlight not working or on and then our marshalls would report it’s working.
I got out the bike and Millie got in. I lay on the ground and it was REALLY warm even though everyone else thought it was quite cold. I lay on the ground and Rachael, who was last in my group, came and lay down with me. She got her phone out and we listened to music on that. We decided to start singing. We were very loud and VERY bad! Mr. Smith came in the tent and even had a video of us singing and hoped that he wouldn’t show that one at assembly. Millie got out of the bike and Clarrie got in. While Millie had been in the bike I had annoyed Clarrie to bits by asking him every five seconds if he was ready. When I’m tired, I’m annoying!
When he got out of the bike, Rachael got in. I was still lying down until I got a bit cold and I went over to the heater. After Rachael got out of the bike, Millie and Clarrie left to go to bed and Nick and Wylan arrived. Rachael and I were in the tent when Nick was in the bike. Craig came and told us to go to bed and we said “we’d go in a bit,” because Rachael was still quite warm from the bike and I was waiting for mum to get back from marshalling because she told me to wait for her to get back before I left to go to the caravan. We were still waiting when Craig came back and said “I thought I’d told you to go to bed.” We said that we were waiting for my mum to get back from marshalling.” Mum got back and we walked up to the caravan. Rachael and I walked over to the portable toilets and we were making quite a bit of noise. We kept walking into the rope that held the tents up because they stick out. We walked past the tents where people from our school had pitched and then around at the bottom. Most people would have already gone to bed because it was about 10:15pm. Going back we were just as noisy. Rachael was walking infront of me and I went up behind her and scared her and she screamed!
We got into the caravan and went to bed. I just put my trackies on top of my shorts so it was a bit comfier and warmer and I left my jumper next to my bed for when I’d be getting up. I set my alarm on my phone and went to sleep. I went to sleep really quickly and it was about 10:30pm when I fell asleep. I woke up at 3:30am after five hours of sleep. I sat up in the bed while Rachael and my mum were walking around the caravan. I was sitting there shivering with my teeth chattering. We walked down to the tent and some of the last people in Group B were there. Millie was about to get in the bike when we got down there. I sat there with my helmet with me because I couldn’t put my helmet on while I still had my jumper on. I took my trackies and jumper off about fifteen minutes before I got in the bike. I stood outside the tent in the pits trying to warm myself up and waiting for Millie to get in the bike.
When I got in the bike I pulled out of the pits and started riding. We had a computer screen in the tent with the updates on our placing. We were almost tenth when I got in the bike and I heard them say on the radio just after I had been in the bike for about twenty seconds that we were now tenth and we had overtaken the school that we were trying to beat. I had been looking out for their bike while I had been riding but couldn’t see it. When I was on my last lap for that turn, I was going under Bridge 2 which is just before the long straight which is past our pits when a bike came past and crashed into me really hard and the bike jumped and basically flew through the air. It was one of the really fast bikes but I wasn’t in its way or anything. There was heaps of room on the right of me for it to go past. I was really shaken up by that and when I went into the pits on the next lap I was glad I didn’t have to do another lap at that time in the morning. After my turn, I cooled down a bit in the tent and then went back to bed.
I was asleep by 5:30am. I then woke up at about 8:30am. I looked outside the window and there were so many people out there. There were loads of parents with a few kids. I lay there for about three minutes but then decided to get up. When I got up and went outside I expected to see loads of people but there was only Rachael, Clarrie and Brandon sitting outside. I opened the door and they said “she’s up!” I went outside and sat down and they could tell I was tired! We sat there for a while and some of the parents came back and saw I was up and wondered if mum was up. I said she wasn’t and they seemed very disappointed because there was a coffee machine in the caravan but my mum was still asleep and they didn’t want to wake her. I said she wouldn’t mind getting up but they didn’t want to wake her.
The four of us sat and talked for a while and the boys said that they had already eaten but Rachael and I hadn’t. After a while I went and woke mum up anyway and she got up. Rachael and I ate breakfast and then the four of us made our way down to the school tent. Almost the whole team were down there. All the iPods with Truth or Dare on them had lost all their battery except Charlotte’s. We got Charlotte’s iPod and it said it was disabled for 43 minutes. Hmmmm… Connor told us Seb had disabled it for an hour. That was the only iPod we could play Truth or Dare on! We asked anyone if they’d heard us walking past the tents last night and most of them said “was that you?” We said yes and most of them had got quite annoyed at our noise!
It was about 9:00am and some of us said that we wanted to go down to the courts for one last time and also crash corner. Lots of us headed off down to the courts for one last time. We played Basketball for ages and there were lots of us that went down so we had bigger teams than all the other times we played it. Once we had got bored down there and it was about 9:30am, we headed up because our group was on at 10:00am. We took turns in the bike and it was all very exciting out on the track because it was nearing the end of the race.
Once the last person in our group was in the bike, Millie, Tori, Clarrie and I headed up to crash corner for a bit. We tried to get there as fast as we could so we could see people go past and so we had quite a bit of time up there. When we got there it was packed. There weren’t that many crashes at that point because it was almost the end of the race and no one wanted to crash then. Everyone was being very cautious around crash corner. There was one crash that came right up to the barrier in front of us and we screamed! It was quite freaky! By this time the curb was all coloured from the bikes scraping along it when they crashes and skidded. We saw Nick, Wylan and the first lap of Hannah coming round and we went back to the tent to see the end of the race there.
When we got back Hannah had almost finished and we were only less than a lap ahead of the team we were trying to stay ahead of. In the early morning we were about a lap and a half ahead. We had a pit stop and our last rider, Brandon, got in the bike. He set off and we were all gathered in the tent or next to the pit barrier. We saw him go around and bike #59 was about half a lap behind us. Brandon stayed in front until the end of the race and we finished tenth! All the bikes were doing their parade laps and getting drenched with water. When Brandon came in, he was soaked and water was dripping from him when he got out. We had a few more photos with the bike and then it was time to start packing up.
We gathered all our things together and started to pack up. They took the school tent down so now it was just a big patch of grass where the things that were in the tent now were. Mum and I got our things out of the caravan and into our car. We helped move the trailer to put the bike on and said goodbye to everyone. We left and set off home. I was so tired!
Last week, we had an assembly where we did an item about Pedal Prix. Hannah’s dad (Adrian), put all the video footage we had taken into one big video and we showed that at assembly. We also got given medals since we have been the best team that they’ve had at Hawthorndene Primary School. We presented Mr. Smith, Craig, Greg and Trevor with gifts for all their support and help they’ve put in. Overall we came tenth out of the primary schools (out of 82 primary schools) and 89th overall (out of about 320 bikes).
Here is a slideshow I put together of photos from the event:
By Emily 
