Cory Wallace - King of the 24-hr Solo Mtb Race

On Sunday, September 28th, after riding for 24 hours straight, Kona rider Cory Wallace, who hails from Jasper, Alberta, took the win at the WEMBO 24 Hour Solo World Championships in Canberra, Australia. The win would add a sixth consecutive 24 title to Cory’s resume. Over the 40 laps of the Mount Stromlo course, Cory would ride 434.71 km (270 miles) and climb over 10,178 m (33,392 feet) all the time maintaining an average speed of 18.7 km/h. Read our latest blog for Cory’s description of the day’s events, as well as some insights he shared with us on specific aspects of his successful ride.

In Cory’s own words:

It had been a hectic September cleaning up in Jasper after the savage wildfires, then travelling half way around the World to tackle a race course I had previously lost on 3 times in a row in Australia’s Capital.

Race day started off waking up from a 9-hour sleep raring to go. The only hiccup was trying to drain a 4 litre pot of cowboy coffee into the thermoses for the race. Using a fork, I missed a few grinds but figured the extra grit would just mean more caffeine. Pretty soon I’d ride up to meet my pit crew, long-time coach/bike fitter/ tester Luke Way, my old Aussie mate James Lamb, and Radical Lights. They had the pit dialled and soon the race kicked off at high noon on a great 11 km course around Mt. Stromlo.

A lead group of 7 formed on lap 2, which would soon dwindle to 4 as two of Australia’s strong marathon riders, Jon Odams and Mick Sherwood set a solid pace. Jason English and I’d lap a few minutes behind before I put in effort to bridge up. Mick was putting in some solid 400-watt efforts up the main climb which dropped Jon. I’d stick with Mick, making sure we kept the pressure on. A lap later I’d put some pressure on Mick heading into the singletrack with a small gap forming on one of the A-lines. He would have a big crash on the following descent while trying to chase back up which stretched the gap out.

The 3 Australians (Jon, Jason, Mick), chased 4/5 minutes back for a few hours. I’d keep on the diesel, eventually stretching this out to around 20 minutes over Mick, Jon pulling out and Jason dropping a lap back. The Australian night was amazing racing 11 hours through the dark with Kangaroos all over the place, 1 wallaby, and no snakes. As the morning dawn broke, the birds were chirping a nice tune as I had maintained the 20-minute lead, but this had stabilized as Mick was riding strong.

Early morning I told the crew I better put in a couple of hot laps to try and finish off lapping Mick, which would allow for a bit of a mellower morning. The tactic worked, and soon I just had 4 hours to diesel around to cap off the defence and title # 6! 24 hrs, 40 laps, zero mechanicals.

Do you use power as a reference when racing, for pacing, tracking calories, etc? If so, what numbers are you trying to sustain, stay under, etc.?

I was using power at the start of the 24HR World Champs to make sure I didn’t go too deep “into the red.” It’s easy to get overly excited early on with all the adrenaline pumping around and push beyond your limits. I also use the power to make sure I keep pushing hard over the tops of climbs and on the flatter sections of course where it is easy to let up.

Do you try and avoid going into the red in a race of this distance and keep it a purely endurance effort, or do you still have to burn some matches at times?

24HR racing is at such a high level now that you have to go into the red. Often the first 6 hours are basically at Marathon pace as there’s always guys going pretty much all out from the gun. This year two of Australia’s top Marathon guys were on the start line and they amped it up pretty good, from laps 2 through 6. I used my power meter to gauge the effort a bit as I chased 2-3 minutes behind. My goal was to keep them in sight, but not burn too many matches, then once they slowed down a bit to go into the red and counterattack to try and get at them early. Once the gap was established, I tried to maintain it without going too deep again. Going into the red is like using a Super Mario Kart magic mushroom, you only have a few of these over the course of 24 hours, so it’s nice to keep one stashed away in case it’s needed later in the race.

A 24hr race is clearly a huge undertaking, what do you find is the best formula for training for an event like this? Logging huge volume year-round? Doing other ultra-distance events leading up to it?

It’s a fine balance of putting in the big miles early on in the season, then focusing on the high end closer to the event. You want to be rested and have your top end firing for a 24 hour race so I try not to overdo it too close to race day. I find bike-packing trips are great to get in the volume, as well as stage racing. The other main thing is to have your mental strength ready for the undertaking. This I do throughout the year at various times, whether it’s through racing or big missions over in the Himalayas, you want to be constantly expanding your comfort zone or else it can easily start going the other way.

What does the day of the championship event look like for you?

The day of the event I try to lay in bed until 9 am. I’ll try to have a super chill morning, listen to some country music, drink some cowboy coffee, and then double check the bike is ready to go. I’ll generally eat a big bowl of oats with some F2C Nutrition on it around 10:30m then roll over to the race site around 11 am. I’ll ride for 10-15 minutes, then warm up the cardio for 5 minutes with my Isocapnic Breathing System, just to make sure the system is ready to go in case riders go hot out of the gate.

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Thanks to Cory for sharing details of his amazing ride with us, and congrats on a sixth world title! If you’d like to learn more about the power meter Cory rides with, you can find full details here: PRECISION 3+ Powermeter