Polaris Challenge

---

Sunshine and Mist in the Beacons

Karen McDonald = Polaris / 23.03.2005

This years Spring Polaris Challenge was held in the very sunny Brecon Beacons on the weekend of 19-20 March 05. What a difference to a year ago when gales blew everyone off their bikes!

Saturday morning saw everyone arising to a very misty sky. You could hardly see the start let alone the give-out at the other end of the rugby pitch! Marshals had to be positioned to direct the riders to the give-out to receive their control values for the day.

As soon as the riders got to the hills though, the sun had burnt off the worst of the mist and everyone was subjected to a very warm sun and probably sunburn (apart from two marshals (Dave and Andy) who were in mist all day near check point 12).

The hills around the Brecons proved to be bigger than most expected and there were quite a few late finishers on Saturday evening and unfortunately some of them even lost all their points for the day as they were over an hour late. Everyone arrived in good spirits as the riding was so good and the weather made it a change from the gales of a year ago. There were some excellent scores from some of the top riders with a battle for the top 6 places going into the second day. And a battle for the most points lost! The overnight atmosphere was very happy with some of the riders enjoying a bonfire they lit just after dark, which always gathers a crowd to chat about the day.

Sunday looked like another scorcher with all the riders heading off for another 5 hours riding and lessons learnt most riders arrived back well within the 5 hours to keep their scores for the second day and receive a well earned meal from Wilf’s Café. I think the tail wind over the hills helped a little too! A lot of the riders chose the “Gap� as their route back and had some excellent riding with it; most mentioned how good the descent was!

Back at the finish the battle was on to see who was going to try to beat Steve headings superb score from Saturday but he flew round and took the title with a whopping 610 points. Another great event with a superb area planned by Ian Barrington.

You can see the full results listing here, and Jon Brooke\'s picture galleries here.See All Event Posts