Expedition Africa
Favourites Lead Expedition Africa
Rob Howard/Lisa de Speville/Jacques Marais / 10.05.2011
The first expedition length race in South Africa for almost 3 years is currently underway with 21 teams on the 500km course of Expedition Africa. Top S.A. teams Cyanosis and Merrell (see earlier reports) are leading and being chased by the only visiting international team – Accelerate from the UK.The race began Monday morning and includes approximately 323km of mountain biking, 127km of trekking and a 50km paddle. The plan was to start with a beach run followed by a sea kayak stage, but high winds forced a change of plans. The paddle was switched to the Klein River coastal lagoon but teams still encountered 1m swells and severe head winds.
Cyanosis, Merrell and Accelerate lead after the paddle and have remained the top 3 since. The next stage was a140km cycle ride after which Cyanosis lead, chased by the UK team and then Merrell, who took a wrong turn and lost time in the night. All the tops teams took almost 10 hours on the ride and race photographer Jacques Marais said that teams were all over the place on the cycle leg.
He said that it isn’t a technical section – all on dirt roads – or navigationally difficult, but that the “less organised� teams out there are finding it challenging. They are struggling to pick the right roads because there are so many district and farm roads and sign posting isn’t good. He says he can’t even begin to guess at placings of the other teams until they emerge from the bike section.
He added that he thinks that the front teams “overcooked it a bit yesterday with the ding-dong battle between Cyanosis and Merrell�, which is why the cycle took them longer than expected.
The leaders moved onto 46km hike without stopping to sleep and are heading for the mid camp at T5, described as, “a beautiful wedding venue called Beloftebos with tents ready for the teams to sleep in and a Pasta meal prepared with Malva pudding!� It is going to be tough getting there however.
Marais says the trek is a difficult one, especially in as the trails are not clear. The last few kilometres are in the Salmon’s Dam Nature Reserve where there is a hiking trail, but again it is not necessarily very distinct.
The Accelerate team are known to the top S. African teams as they’ve raced against each other at the past two World Championships, but the line up for this race is different. The UK team consists of team regulars Caroline Bullard and Dave Spence, joined by experienced racers Andy Mitchell and Kim Collinson.
Team captain Dave Spence commented before the start; “Objectives and strategy will be refined once we get sight of the race route (the first half anyway - the second half is only provided at the midway rest stop), but we're aiming for a podium place. Regular world scene competitors Merrell Adventure Addicts and Cyanosis are the obvious threats but we're sure we'll find there are plenty more strong athletes in the other local teams.
You can follow news on the race <a href="#" onClick="javascript:newsitewindow('http://www.kineticgear.co.za/AdventuresRaces/ExpeditionAfrica/tabid/15885/Default.aspx')" class="main">website</a>, and also on <a href="#" onClick="javascript:newsitewindow('http://www.ar.co.za')" class="main">www.ar.co.za</a> with twitter news on the hash tag #expafrica.See All Event Posts
