JINDABYNE mountain biker Tim Beaver was among a group of junior riders who finished in fourth place after a gruelling 24 hour endurance ride at Mt Stromlo at the weekend.
The 15 year old rider was the only junior among a group of Jindabyne locals to take part in the Scott 24 hour Mountain Bike Race and only narrowly missed out on a third place finish in the Male Schools Division.
He was part of the Canberra Off Road Cyclists (CORC) schools team of six boys ranging in age from 12 to 15, who finished only two minutes behind third place, which is incredibly close after a 24 hour event.
The team covered 28 laps of two alternating length courses in the 24 hours, with the boys taking turns to ride single laps.
The 'long' lap was 15.7 kilometres while the 'short' lap was 13.2 kilometres and were set around the trails of the Mount Stromlo Bike Park.
"I was out on the longer blue loop for all of my laps, they suited me better as a rider," Tim said.
"The two laps were very different, one being nine kilometres of climbing followed by a very steep down hill descent, the other was a slightly longer much flatter loop with a similar amount of climbing stretched out over a longer distance," he said.
More challenging for the endurance riders of all ages and categories were the night laps, spectators were able to track the progress of the riders by the trails of lights visible from the village.
"I went out for my first lap about 6.30pm, about six and a half hours into the race and most of my laps during the race were between midnight and 6am, it's the best time."
Tim thanked Ayup lighting who helped out with lights for the event.
"I'd just like to give a special mention to Ayup lighting, the lights really helped to keep my night lap times consistent and faster."
He was fairly pleased with his own and his team's performance and refused to let a flat tyre get in his way during the race.
"I went out for a hot lap to set a fast time but got a flat front tyre, I still put a lot of effort into finishing in a decent time but after that I settled into a good consistent rhythm and rode fast laps through the night."
The event was open to teams or single riders so while some riders received a reprieve while others took their turn, other individual riders pushed on through the entire 24 hours without rest.
The Scott 24 hour is hosted by the CORC organisation and recognised as the world's best 24 hour endurance race, this year it attracted more than 2,000 competitors.
A fourth place finish has only made Tim more determined to continue in endurance racing, he's looking to the future and may even make an appearance at next year's event.
"I'm actually planning after this summer's Australian national series to leave the cross country Olympic racing format to compete in the marathon and endurance racing which are 100 kilometre races and longer hour races.
"At the moment it looks like I'll be competing with the same team next year, I'll be hoping to better my result with a faster hot lap and a bit faster with my night laps."