Expedition Africa

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Team Cyanosis: Second place finish at Expedition Africa

Nicholas Mulder/Team Cyanosis / 16.05.2011

Last week, Team Cyanosis raced to a second place finish at Expedition Africa, the continent's premier 500km adventure race. The team raced well over a very fast course to finish in 2 days, 15 hours and 38 minutes, finishing about 2.5 hours behind Team Merrell, also from South Africa and 3 hours ahead of Team Accelerate from the UK. The team was a mixture of experience and youth, with Nicholas Mulder and Clinton Mackintosh being joined by Nathan Thompson and Jane Swarbreck, both competing in their first expedition length race.

The race was a tight affair over most of the first half of the race with Cyanosis, Merrell and Accelerate regularly changing the lead. With a sunrise start on Monday morning, Cyanosis quickly established an early lead on the first 14km trail running leg around the streets and mountains of Hermanus in the Western Cape. Merrell then took the lead on the extremely windy paddle on the Klein River estuary linking Hermanus and Stanford, where wave heights reached 1 metre in a head-on gale. Cyanosis and Accelerate subsequently set about chasing them down on the next leg, a 35km beach trek along Walker Bay to Gansbaai.

Teams left Gansbaai on a 140km mountain biking stage that would see them through most of Monday night. Cyanosis put together an excellent ride through some consistent riding and navigation, first taking a joint lead with Accelerate before getting the outright lead as the teams passed near the Quoin Point lighthouse, a tough section with tricky navigation in the rolling sand dunes. Upon arriving at the foot of the Bredasdorp mountains, the team had opened a gap of 40 minutes on Accelerate and 1 hour on Merrell.

A tough 47km mountain trekking stage proved to be the turning point of the race, with Cyanosis taking a route choice between two checkpoints that proved significantly slower than anticipated. This gave the lead back to Merrell and Cyanosis, with two developing injuries in the team, found themselves unable to keep the growing gap in check. The end of the stage brought teams into the half-way mark at Beloftesbos, at the foot of the Salmonsdam Nature Reserve and a compulsory 5-hour rest stop.

The second half of the race was easier and faster than the first, now that the two hardest legs of the race were behind the teams. First up was another lightning quick ride through the dark on the district roads of the Overberg region, through the towns of Grayton and Genadendal to the foot of the Riviersonderend Mountains. This set up an 'up-and-over' trekking leg that culminated in a fun canyoneering and abseil section before teams made their way to the Theewaterskloof Dam for a 24km paddle.See All Event Posts