Polaris Challenge

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Blown Away!

Rob / 21.03.2004

Spring 2004 will go down in the record books as the first Polaris challenge ever to be called off, though only after a heroic effort by the organisers and the competitors in the face of some exceptional weather.

Riders set off from the event centre at Leyburn despite a forecast of gale force winds, but only about 60 made it to the overnight camp, and on Sunday morning the race was called off. The ferocious and sustained nature of the wind was too much for most on Saturday and with more strong wind forecast for Sunday the organisers and planner Steve Willis directed teams back to HQ via one checkpoint. Here the prize giving was made among those described as ‘the survivors’, based on the day one results.

Among those who got to the campsite was Gary Tompsett, a former winner, competing with Helen Jackson of Team Saab Salomon, and he described the weekend as “the most unusual fun I’ve ever had on a bike�.

“We had an amazing 7 hours� he went on. “ It was a fantastic day in some ways, not exactly scary, but if you’d been blown over in a remote spot the wind would have pinned you down and it could have been awkward.�

“Some people with slicks on were having the wheels blown out from under them and everyone was regularly blown off. I kept looking back to see Helen lying in the road or on the track. At times you were riding at 45 degrees and you knew if you came to a gap in a wall you had to brace and lean for the blast! Then you’d get blown across the road.�

“When you went through puddles with the wind behind you, the water you splashed up then overtook you at 30 mph! At one point I shouted to Helen to punch a checkpoint (you had to shout all weekend) and then tried to drag her bike 10m up a slope and it just took off. She looked back to see me wrestling furiously with her bike.�

“Jim Davies described it as the worst cycling weather he’d ever known and at every village there were 40 or 50 bikes outside the pubs! Teams just had to abandon as couldn’t go forward, they had to retreat. Anywhere above 400m you were in big trouble and hills were secondary to the power of the wind. We were pushed up a road marked with a double chevron on the OS map without pedalling, and had to push our bikes steeply downhill the other side!�

“The camp site was quite sparsely populated and we sheltered in sheep folds, complete with dead rats. Then in the morning there was a bit of confusion but in the end the organisers sent us back and we buddied up for the ride. It was certainly the worst Polaris weather ever, and a bit of shame not to finish the race. But it’s great that everyone gave it a go, and was definitely a weekend to remember!�

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