7th annual Siku Extreme Arctic Challenge
The third day of the Siku Extreme Arctic Challenge 2007
Jesper Kunuk Egede & Jesper Sand Mortensen / 23.07.2007
The third day of the Siku Extreme Arctic Challenge 2007 started this morning at 9 AM Greenland time (-3 GMT).The race started fine at 9 PM this morning from the Museum in Tasiilaq. Today’s stage will take the racers on a mountain bike relay race to the dam behind the town of Tasiilaq. The bikers will ride 2 and 2. When the last racers return, they go to the school and hand in their and then they go mountain and glacier trekking.
We owe you an update from the end of the race last night. A Team arrived at the finish line at 10.41 PM, coming at 13 hours, 41 minutes and 31 seconds. Aurora came in at 11.12 PM in a time of 14 hours, 12 minutes and 56 seconds. The remaining two members of the Nansen B Team arrived at 2 AM.
The Nansen B Team is taking an alternative route today. Ralph Rayner decided to quit the race and the three remaining members, Stephen, Geir and Terje, are not doing the mountain bike relay race but will instead do the entire stage today by foot.
Glacier Virgins!
The Explorer Team is very much looking forward to today’s race. ‘I’m really happy about the race this year,’ says team captain Neal Radford – ‘we make it back in time for dinner!’ They are also excited about today’s stage: ‘I’m glad that the race leaders have adjusted the length of this stage. It’s short enough for us to make it to the barbecue,’ he continues. Neil is happy to be able to show his friends the area and today’s glaciers. ‘Yeah, we’re glacier virgins,’ says Dave Boyd. Neither Dave nor Chip have been on a glacier before. ‘I’ve never been on one and I’m very excited,’ says Chip Whitworth. ‘In general, we’re ahead of where we thought we’d be, so this is great,’ says Chip. Also his wife Michella and son Alex are having a good time, Alex playing around with the local kids.
15 falls and counting
‘If I’m excited about going on the glacier? Apprehensive is more like it,’ Leon from The A Team says. ‘I’m feeling very tired today. It felt good to come home last night. I’m weak on the bike so I really struggled yesterday. But the trekking was fine,’ he concludes. Still, this is one of the teams who will always flash people a smile so it can’t be all bad. Or? ‘Yesterday, we had fifteen falls on the bike between us, one puncture, two broken bikes, one broken derraileur and one broken chain,’ Ashok says. But the team smiles on. See you at the barbecue.
Superwoman of the Year
Femke Mooij of team AMI. MacPac & Icebreaker looks so fragile with her petite frame and beautiful features but don’t let that fool you. This superwoman is one killer climber who has already done so much glacier trekking that she’s confident enough to find it a bit boring. ‘Usually, glacier trekking is not exactly the most exciting part of a race,’ she confides, ‘but from what I’ve heard from others who’ve done the race, it’s supposed to be really beautiful here.’ Like a true pro, she has set her goal for the day: ‘I’m really looking forward to the barbecue at the beach!’
Let’s go Party
Team Neriusaaq kinda surprised most spectators yesterday when they took the lead in the race. Not that these guys are not strong or anything, but mainly because there have been several changes in the line up and they haven’t had the chance to train together. ‘All in all, I don’t think today’s stage will be as hard as the one yesterday,’ says Simon Bernth-Andersen. ‘When you look at the map, the terrain looks a lot more flat. It’ll be a day of restoration...or maybe I’m just overly optimistic,’ he laughs. Simon is looking forward to the beach, the barbecue and the party. ‘It’ll be super. We can really party, except the probably won’t let me party as much as I want to. But the fact that we are now leaving the town and going to the base camp makes this feel like it’s the last day. Now we start for real!’
Pumping a tire, Lesson 1
Finisterreuk also took their share of falls on their bikes yesterday. The bruises on Tom’s arm speak for themselves. They also broke a chain on the far side of the mountain bike route so they had to run into town with the bike. Not to mention that they punctured a tire and just couldn’t inflate it again. ‘Getting off the bikes and knowing that we had to climb the three highest peaks in the area, that was emotional,’ says Will (‘Nah, we enjoyed it,’ chips in Nick. Will: ‘Did we?’)
When the tire was mentioned, James was giggling uncontrollably in the corner. ‘Hee hee, that was so incompetent. We were pumping and pumping for ten minutes and nothing happened. Turned out we didn’t know how to use the pump. We had all the right gear but didn’t know how it worked. The minute we found out how to really use it, the tire was inflated.’ Will was a bit embarrassed that we were going to write about this so we promised to say that he was gone, taking a 10-minute slash.
UPDATE AT 9 PM FROM A REMOTE BEACH
Oh the wonders of modern technology! Tele Greenland has sponsored the use of a fantastic BGAN satellite receiver which makes it possible for us to sit here in the middle of nowhere and do our updates.
The unofficial accumulated times are:
1. Neriusaaq 18:07:08
2. ISI Salomon 18:26:45
3. Maniitsoq 225 18:56:05
4. Explorer (NZ/USA) 20:41:46
5. Intersport Iceland 21:07:54
6. Les Couleurs de l’Aventure 22:10:40
7. Feed the Machine 23:16:50
8. AMI: MacPac & Icebreaker 24:02:23
9. Finisterreuk 25:48:40
10. The Northern Lights 26:07:04
11. EEA 27:42:31
12. A Team 29:12:15
13. Aurora 32:34:25
Out of rank – Nansen B Team 31:44:29
Outside race – Pihl Corporate 21:45:10
Outside race – EEA Corporate 30:03:51
Andrus Meiner from the EEA Corporate Team was injured in his finger along the route. Remember how I’ve earlier have called Femke Mooij a superwoman. She proved that once again. She’s a doctor and treated Andrus’es finger on top of the Mittivakkat Glacier. Afterwards, he was picked up by helicopter and brought to the hospital in Tasiilaq.
This is all for now. We’ll update again tomorrow at 7 AM with race briefing and a little update on the coming day’s activities.
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