In Untamed New England

Untamed New England

In Untamed New England

Ian Grace - Team Endurancelife / 20.07.2009

Team Endurancelife of the UK (Mark Bottomley and Ian Grace) set off for their first World Series race at the recent Untamed New England and this is Ian's account of the race.

After a couple of warm up races in the UK, we headed off to Boston, USA and the wild untamed New England countryside for the UntamedNE adventure race, part of the AR World Series of races.

Based at the Balsams resort in Dixville Notch, NH, the race was to be spread out over 3 days including the disciplines of MTB, trekking, and flat and white water paddling (in open canoes).

After the travelling, the shopping and kit preparation, the start finally arrived on 9th July and at 8am we had our mandatory gear checked, checked the satellite phone worked (there are no mobile phone signals up there) and were issued with out race maps and instructions. The race was now on. Although the race did not officially start until 12 Noon, we still had to hand in our transition bag and paddle bag, mark up the maps and even check out of the hotel. Time flew by, half the spare gear was ditched from the gear bags to meet the strict weight limits imposed, only 75% of the course was plotted and we were off:

Day 1

Stage 1 Summary: Balsams Resort to the Town of Errol, NH
Dixville Forest Mountain Bike - 24 miles

Race Commentary: Mountain biking the trails, forest roads, and overgrown jeep tracks through Dixville, NH.

British mud biking is all I have to say about this stage. We headed out from the Balsams resort on to the forest trails that after a month of heavy downpours were pretty muddy. The stage started with a long climb which was a bit of a shock to the system straight from the start, but was quickly followed by some very wet and muddy descents that had us heading south-east from the start area towards the town of Errol. After CP 2 there was a long forest road climb to be quickly followed by a massive sweeping dirt road descent to the Main Dixville to Errol Road. We had stayed in Errol for two nights before the race start and whizzed past our motel to meet the Androscoggin River for the start of the paddle.
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