About 200 mountain bikers rode through the night at Dark Mountain Recreation Area in North Carolina on Memorial Day weekend during the Burn 24-Hour Challenge. Racers vied for cash, merchandise and the right to compete in the world mountain bike endurance championships. Bob Anderson, 38, of Crozet, Va. finished first in the solo men’s category, racking up about 180 miles over the 24 hours.

“The hardest part was staying awake at 4:00 am,” said Anderson, a funeral director.

Anderson never slept and stopped only briefly during the 24-hour race. “If I stopped, I knew I’d be stopped for quite a while.”

Vicky Camp of Asheville was the fastest female solo rider, logging about 140 miles over the 24-hour period.

Team Spinz of High Point won the two-person team competition, Team Critter of Richmond, Va., took the coed team honors and Team Deliverance of Wise, Va., bested the field in the male team category.

The format of the Burn 24-Hour Challenge guaranteed fatigue. Racers ran to their bikes at noon Saturday in a furious mass start. About 40 riders in the solo category kept at it around the clock, taking only brief breaks, until noon Sunday. The rest competed in teams of two to five, alternating riding with rest. Top teams logged more than 200 miles of riding over the course of the 24-hour race.

The tough terrain took its toll. The six-mile course featured two climbs from the shores of Kerr Scott Lake to the top of Dark Mountain. Once atop the ridge, racers blitzed through an undulating tangle of rolling singletrack trails, encountering tight turns, a rock garden, and several optional jumps. Since the course was unlit, racers used lighting systems to penetrate the deep woods at night.

The Burn 24-Hour Challenge was a debut of sorts for the trail network at Dark Mountain. Volunteers from the Brushy Mountain Cycling Club have logged more than 1,200 hours adding about six miles of singletrack trail at Dark Mountain. Riders seemed pleased with the freshly-built trails.

“We’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback about the course,” said race director Tyler Benedict.

“Kerr Scott is the next mountain biking mecca in North Carolina,” added Jason Bumgarner of the Brushy Mountain Cycling Club. “The Burn 24 puts Dark Mountain in the ranks of Tsali and other nationally-known trails in the region.”

-Tim Murphy