Polaris Challenge

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Blown Away by The Dales

Fi Spotswood / 16.10.2006

The last Polaris Challenge of 2006 saw over 420 hundred riders complete 7 and 5 hours on Saturday and Sunday carrying all their gear for an overnight camp on their backs, often with heads down into a some pretty strong winds across the moors.

Spanning Swaledale and Wensleydale, the area had been especially chosen for it’s superbly varied and frequently technical bridleways, and over 60 checkpoints were planned and placed over two days by MTBO supremo Steve Willis. To ride theses Dales trails you need to stitch together and navigate your own route, often across exposed terrain and of course the Polaris Challenge has always embraced these raw principles of MTB exploration. Riders were not disappointed and the race was described as the best event ever, even in that wind!

One competitor, Fiona Spotswood, enjoyed the toughness of the event and beauty of the terrain. This is her story;

Getting to Grinton

Hitting the motorway traffic at 4pm on a Friday is never going to be fun. However, the 2 hyperactive mountain bikers crammed in a van full of deliciously oily-smelling kit, hopping up and down on their seats with excitement would have caused some entertainment to the other drivers also grinding slowly northwards.

We arrived late at night in the dark, so opening the curtains on the Saturday morning was like Christmas. The gift was a view of steep, soaring green hills topped with jagged rock, slipping dramatically into a river valley. It was Wensleydale at its most beautiful, lit by a perfect golden morning glow.

So what if the windows were rattling and the few gnarled trees were bent double against the gale? The short drive up to the race HQ introduced me to the picture-postcard villages, hardy-looking sheep and endless miles of dry-stone walls for which Yorkshire is so famous. See All Event Posts