Queanbeyan junior mountain bike team wins Scott 24hr outright, beating senior teams in Canberra

On September 27 and 28 the team, which included eight Queanbeyan teenagers, took the outright win at the Scott 24hr mountain bike race at Canberra's Stromlo Park, becoming the first ever junior team to win a senior event.

The race, more of which featured 37 laps more than 12 kilometres in length, and a total of 462 kilometres, feturing a junior and senior division, saw the Queanbeyan boys- aged between 13 and 17- finishing as the best of them all.

"It's [the win] a combination of having a good team of kids that rides well and having some professionalism behind it," Longhurst said.

"We've done that as far as knowing what they're doing, organising their time, making sure they sleep enough, and having a mechanic on site to make sure everything is running smoothly, as opposed to just a bunch of kids turning up for a ride."

While it was not the team's first 24 hour event- which literally operates for 24 straight hours, with riders rotating like a relay- it still proved a monumental task for the boys, with Longhurst forcing individuals to sleep while they were not racing.

"We try to be efficient. The boys go out, they do their lap, they get fed, and then we try to get them off to have some sleep, certainly through the night, and then we service the bikes and wake them up in time for the next lap," Longhurst said.

Each rider in the team, which includes Joseph Simpson, Connor Maclachlan, Cos Hofman, Jonathon Dahl, Sam Dyne, Duncan Ledger, Stephen Kennedy and Josh Megalli, also compete individually, and ride in shorter events as a team as well.

Simpson, 15, said the record-setting win a fortnight ago had given him the confidence to one day represent Australia in the sport, after he recently returned from a broken leg.

"It'd be great to go to the Olympics," he said.

"I want to get onto as many podiums as I can, but it's hard, because there's a lot of racing talent out there."