Aventure Aveyronnaise

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 03.08.2010

The first edition of the Aventure Aveyronnaise took place this last weekend in the Aveyron region of France. One of three races in the â€œRaideurs Tour 2010â€? along with the Raid de Mercantour in June and the Extreme Adventure Race in September, the Aventure Aveyronnaise was organized by up and coming adventure racer Adrien Seguret and his team Absolue Raid. When Adrien invited Sleepmonsters to report in English he explained people who hail from Aveyron are extremely proud of their region and their roots and as a native he wanted to show case the most beautiful sites. The list of teams was impressive with a Spanish team and some of the best national teams in France, the majority of which compete at the international level. As most of the French teams will be competing in the ARWS Raid in France at the end of August, the event served as a perfect training weekend.

The race format was 24hours non-stop in teams of three (two racing and one replacement), Ten teams were mixed and fourteen where all male for a total of 24 teams. For the mixed teams the organization imposed seven of the twelve sections that the ladies had to complete. The race sections included MTB,orienteering,kayak trail,rope work, a tyrollean and a via ferrata. The road book indicated that the mandatory check points had to be collected in order. There were also optional checkpoints and for those teams which did not collect them the time penalties ranged from twenty-five minutes to an hour. The existence of time cut-offs meant that the teams had to make careful strategic choices.

The Aventure Aveyronnaise kicked off at noon on Saturday from the center of the town of Rodez. The first section was a 10km urban orienteering race, and along with the check points, teams also had to answer a series of twelve questions concerning sites in the city which the first teams completed 20 min. earlier then the estimated time. Most teams answered the questions easily but Jean Marc Marion of Raid Nature 46 arrived at the transition complaining bitterly about question number 4, â€œWhat color is the cross on the road?â€? He had been looking for a Judeo-Christian cross when the object in question was actually an orange X on the pavement. The first three teams in to the first transition at the 16th century chateau of Fontanges were Team CDC-SSE Equipemnts,Soul of Tribe and Lozere Sport Nature. See All Event Posts