Bimbache Extrem - Castilla y Leon
A Wet Night and a Sunny Morning
Pyro / 04.10.2010
The night, fortunately for the teams, improved greatly. The early mist, wind, and rain abated and the sky cleared to give a beautifully clear but chilly night. The windchill on the 75km bike to T4 meant arriving teams would have to be quick in transition to avoid seizing up!Silva-Gerber and Blackwater arrived together at around 11:15pm, just ahead of the predicted race schedule, the "head down and keep moving" mentality showing up strongly. The US/NZ team were the slicker in transition, splitting into pairs for the double-discipline stage, Chris Forne and Mike Kloser heading off in the kayak first for the slightly longer water leg, while Nathan Fa'avae and Monique Merrill headed off on foot, to allow the Kiwi 'packhorse' to help out the (much) smaller team member on both foot and in the boat. Silva exited ten minutes behind, chasing their podium rivals.
The first paddlers had the longer but easier journey, with the wind at their backs. 10km of paddling, with CPs both on and off the water, as far as we understand. In the dark, we're told a couple of the CPS were a little trickier to find than had been anticipated, a frustrated Warren Bates commenting "that one on top of the hill took AGES to find". The returning teams faced the opposite problem: despite a shorter paddle and slowly gaining daylight, they had to paddle into a debilitating headwind, with little shelter gained by following the shorelines.
Back at the transition, little respite was available. Some teams had opted to sleep in the handful of tents thrown up around the area, others opted to head straight off as the sun began to creep into the valley. Adidas Terrex, currently in 10th place on the ground, were kitting up to head out, but not fast enough in Tom Gibbs opinion. He moved around the transition, sorting people's kit and food, to the slight frustration of Warren Bates who snapped that "you two have been here 40 minutes, we've only just walked in". These pairs stages are sometimes apt to cause issues in a team, especially if one pair is cold and inactive and the other feels they're being rushed.
The Canadians of Guats Adventure were also feeling the pinch, having slept overnight only to find their food barrel, which they are permitted to access before the kayak/trek but not after, had been re-locked. Wanting their breakfast, they had to track down a transition marshal and explain patiently what had happened. They're also struggling on on the bikes, despite one member of their team having cracked his rear derailleur hanger and being left with only a handful of gears.
As we head on to the first skating section and the 34km high mountain trek, the French Issy Aventure team are the on-the-ground leaders, having skipped both the orienteering section yesterday and the kayak/trek overnight. They left transition two and a half hours ahead of the full-course leaders Blackwater, who had pulled out a half hour lead over Silva, who were only a minute ahead of Buff Thermocool. Outdry-CHiru have pulled up the rankings, passing DareDevils AR in the night to now sit 20mins ahead of the Danes. Sweco, Thule, Opavanet-Tilak and Adidas Terrex round out the top ten.See All Event Posts
