National Indoor Adventure Race

The Course

Rob / 21.03.2002

What he came up with was a complex circuit with 6 mixed teams of 3 on it at any one time. Each race was divided into 3 stages, two teams on each in direct competition. He only cheated a little bit by having them run a short loop outside with a wriggle under a scramble net and a steep ramp to cross.

The rest of the action took place indoors. In the very centre of the arena was the simulator stage with canoe, bike and climbing machines. The bikes were meant to be Mtb simulators programmed with virtual trails which spectators could follow on the big screen above the arena, but the manufacturers let Phil down. So they were standard ‘exercise bikes’. Shame. On both the bike and canoe simulators, which are normally used by world and Olympic level paddlers, it was the number of ‘revolutions’ determining the score.

The climbing was more interesting. This was on a rotating wall known as ‘The Rock’ which fiendishly tilted back gradually, steepening in angle then easing off again, creating an ‘overhang’. The whole route was 176 feet and the two climbers were side by side. When one climber went ‘splat on the mat’ they had to wait until the second fell before they could get back on again. The score came from the height climbed.

Around this core was the fruit of the ‘Speed stage’, and the skin on the outside was the ‘Technical Stage’. Speed started with a bike circuit including a couple of big ramps, one to throw the bikes over and the other to ride (if you could) plus a rumble strip. On loose wood chippings it wasn’t easy. Then it was outside for the run, and the crawl under the net which coated everyone in mud.

The technical stage used a climbing tower in the corner of the arena. Teams went up and down a wall here, and came down the zip which hit the buffers at high velocity and catapulted their feet roofwards spectacularly. Then they had to put up and take down a North Face tent, go under one bike ramp, haul over a rope swing traverse, go under the other bike ramp, and run up to the top of the tower again. On both the Speed and Technical circuits teams had to stop to use electronic timing punches to collect checkpoints. The more CP’s, the more points.

All of this was happening at once, with an announcer explaining what was going on and 4 or 5 TV cameras zooming on the action and putting the close ups or competitor eye views onto a big screen, intercut with film from races round the world.

It was live, it was loud, it was intensely competitive – it worked!