Insomnia has found a new best friend.

Cannons signified the start of the 24 Hours of Vail Lake in Temecula, California. For the racers it meant a weekend pain and lost sleep, for me it meant that my duties were just beginning. For the next seven months I will shun sleep on the weekends keeping batteries charged and racers racing. Vail Lake was my introduction to the sleepless night.
Two of NiteRider's sponsored athletes flew into town on Friday to take part in the Vail Lake race, ultra-endurance junkies David Haase from Wisconsin and Shanna Armstrong from Texas. Both have competed several times in Race Across America, a road cycling race from the Pacific to the Atlantic, crazy I know! Neither had attempted a 24 Hour mountain bike race, but were up for the challenge. NiteRider even had a team of their own with company President Jack Gresmer forming a five man team to take on the night. With Dave and Shanna and Jack's team I figured I would be thrust into pit crew for all three - I was right. Mixing water bottles with the proper nutritional supplements and preparing food for the racers kept me busy from noon to noon. There's a particular treat that Dave prefers over long efforts in the saddle that has become known as the "Dave Special". It's a tortilla with extra-crunchy peanut butter spread on it wrapped around a banana. I made several of those over the course of the race. I also had to make sure that everyone had a fully charged Moab for their handlebars and a MiNewt for their helmets. In between taking care of things with team NiteRider I was charging batteries for the other competitors, repairing lights, and answering questions about our products. Luckily Rob showed up at about 4 in the afternoon so I wasn't alone going into the night.
As soon as the sun went down it cooled off a ton. I was freezing cold the whole night and was cursing myself for leaving the space heaters behind in San Diego. Chris Lesser who is a writer for bike magazine brought by a stack of magazines and a few Red Bulls around 3:30 which was a life-saver. Things were starting to get a little loopy but the carbonation kicked me straight. The reading material was a nice way to keep my brain distracted and stay awake. At one point I went to go sit in the truck to try and warm up and skirted the line between awake and asleep for about 20 minutes. Once the sun came up I felt a little more awake and was happy to be close to the end, but probably not as happy as the racers.
Noon came quickly and found NiteRider supported riders rolling in success. Dave won the solo mens division by several laps and Shanna was fourth in the womens solo category. Team NiteRider pulled in a solid third place in the mens 5 person team division. Great job everyone! Finally finishing meant post-race rub downs by Brandon who was there to help out Dave and Shanna, I even got a few minutes on the table and some acupuncture for a sprained ankle. I'm deathly afraid of needles but I decided to give it a shot and it was worth the risk. There was no pain involved and my ankle felt a ton better once it was done.
Before packing everything up it was time for a few group pics with team NiteRider and Dave and Shanna. Temecula was a blast and I'm looking forward to many more sleepless nights!