Mountain Hardwear Open5 Adventure Race Series #3
Competitive Start to Endurance Series
Anna Gracie. Photos by James Kirby / 17.05.2007
The third race of the 2007 Mountain Hardwear Open5 series took competitors to the spectacular scenery of the Lakes and the beautiful town of Keswick. The Keswick race was also the first race of the Open Adventure Endurance Series, which follows with the Open12 in June and the Open24 in July. There was a high turn out for the event (over 250 racers) as many pairs will be competing in the series and also with the Adventure Racing World Championships in Fort William only 12 days away a few racers wanted to get one final event under their belt before the big race! Looking at the start lists it was also going to be highly competitive in the male and mixed pair classes with many of the countries top adventure racers taking part – picking a winner would be tough!It was also great to see so many people competing at the Open5 as there were a number of great events on the same day including the Dynamic Adventure in the Wye Valley, The Meridia 100 Enduro MTB ride only a few miles away in Penrith and the demanding Fred Whitton round which passed through Keswick and actually shared some of the roads with the Open5 race. It’s safe to say there were a lot of bikes out on Sunday.
The event centre was located in the town of Keswick but the race start and finish was a few miles away in the village of Stair. Although the weather forecast had been bad for the day – it remained dry and even sunny for most of the day with only a few showers appearing as the last teams finished. At the start line it was obvious to see that there were some fairly big hills around and as soon as the scores where handed out it was obvious that competitors would be going up over some of them.
Big Climbs for Extra Points
There was a fairly straight forward navigation route for the run section which involved a large loop and depending on what direction you went, it either sent you through the valley in which the village of Stair sits, then over the Cat Bells ridge and down to the other side onto the beautiful shores of Derwent Water. The question was really which controls to drop – if any.See All Event Posts
