It all began with a motorbike that got traded in for a 10-speed, that was traded in for a mountain bike. Before long Sean McConnell was testing his biking mettle with races on marathons and mountain terrain – and finally, the ultimate 24 Hours of Adrenalin – and another one, and another one.
This weekend McConnell will face his toughest race yet – the World Championships of mountain biking in Whistler, British Columbia. He earned the chance to participate in the event without even knowing it. He took part in the 24 Hours of Adrenalin race at Canmore in July – the race was also national championship and the qualifying race for worlds. And even though he didn’t know until days later, the 40-something-year-old placed first for his age group.
“I found out two days later – yippee yay. I was crowned national champion for my age group – and I wasn’t even aware of it.”
In fact racing has become a passion for the Slave Lake teacher and college instructor – even though he insists he’s only living a childhood dream.
“It’s every young boy’s dream to ride his bike all day,” he says with a shrug.
Twenty-four hours of adrenalin challenges teams and individual participants to see how many laps they can do of a mountainous course – in 24 hours.
His third trip to the race (he races individually) was as much a social event as anything for the racer –even though there wasn’t much time to socialize on race day.
“It’s the bicycle version of the Nascar,” he says, “and there’s a pit where participants can pull off, get work done on their bike, eat, whatever – or even sleep” as the day progresses. Meanwhile there are bands playing, buskers showing off and vendors selling their wares. It’s a carnival atmosphere, he says, where bikers, their family, supporters and hangers-on are entertained around the clock.
“It’s the Woodstock of mountain biking,” he says. “At Canmore, they showed a movie on the side of a mountain for everyone to watch.”
Riding solo for the second time, McConnell says he finally gave in and had a 40-minute snooze at 3:00 a.m. then took off again.
As he prepares for the ultimate challenge, the racer says he’s been hitting the highway –and the hills – for training, but adds his active lifestyle makes training easy.
His ‘training’ sessions include a three-hour stint on the road “then I go home, have something to eat and head out on the trails” for another two or three hours.
McConnell knows that the world championship will include about 250 rides from around the world. Thirty to 40 per cent will be professional riders, he estimates, and that means they’ll have sponsors. McConnell, unfortunately, doesn’t have that luxury so hopes to find some generous supporters.
“I’ve got several local sponsors, but can always use more,” he said with a grin last week, estimating it’ll cost him upwards of $2,500 to pay for air fare, accommodations and expenses.
Those will include the food he uses to fuel his personal engine, which is a lot at race time.
“”I’ve been named Captain Metabolism,” he says with another grin, admitting “I eat more in the first 15 minutes of a race than some people eat in a day.” On a one hour ride McConnell says he consumes about a dozen energy gel-pockets, a couple of power bars, four bottles of water and two bottles of Gatorade or electrolyte replacement.
“You have to keep the body fuelled,” he says, adding that he usually eats about five times each day.
“I’m always grazing,” he says. “The body can metabolize food in smaller amounts.”
(‘Smaller’, it seems, is a comparative term. In fact, the 5-foot-10-inch, 150-pound racer admitted his ‘breakfast’ was substantial: four slices of toast, a bowl of cereal, two containers of yogurt an apple and two bananas.”)

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