Mountain Hardwear Open5 Adventure Race Series #1
“Weather for Today? Hot!� - and so was the Racing
Stuart Hale (Team Accelerate) / 31.01.2008
Look it’s January ... so why is the back of my neck sunburnt? Shouldn’t it be snowing or something, it is after all the first Open5 of the year and well, it always snows! But not this year, so perhaps something is wrong. I have got the right day haven’t I?
Yes, conditions were good, sunny, dry, with perhaps a little too much wind on the edges of the forest, but you can’t have everything. The going was best described as fast, very fast, especially for January. It was a day for the ‘speed merchants’ and it appeared that one or two Triathletes had turned out to experience a new brand of ‘fun’.
Entries were up around 200 mark with plenty of ‘Adventure Virgins’. Adrian Strowger was competing in his first Open5 and was looking forward to getting to grips with the map. He said, “I am looking forward to racing on the hills as I live in the fens, oh and I have a massage booked for Tuesday in case I am a bit sore!� I suspected that quite a few would find the going tough after the Festive period.
The queues at registration were as long as ever and the maps were handed out with the addition of a black squiggly line that had been carefully drawn onto the bike course. This it turned out was the ‘Local Black Run’ or Red if you preferred to avoid the main made drop offs. But what fun, either way!
The bike course, it appeared would be best approached on a heading to the west and North before heading back in on long fast downhill fire tracks. But Mr Thurlow had ensured his usual surprises with help from Paul Gomersall, who headed up the planning.
First stop, collecting points along the way, was a quiet spot in the forest called Dixon’s Hollow. Well it was quiet until we arrived to be greeted by a marshal who explained, “This is a timed section and you have to keep to the track and get to the end to collect your points�. The track was a man made run with jumps, fast banked curves and a nice drop in height. There was definitely one or two who rode the section hard, howling with, one hopes, delight as they flew the jumps. John and Peter Horlock excelled with an unbeaten pairing time of 37 seconds.See All Event Posts
