Czech Adventure Race 2012

Pace and Patience

Jan Smolik / 03.08.2012

Special tasks do not usually tend to decide the race.  However in this year’s Wenger Czech Adventure Race the climbing section made a difference, giving Berghaus the advantage over Wenger.

The climbing section was roughly two thirds of the way through the paddling stage, on the evening of day 1.  Bergson/Accom/Merida and Wenger/Estim arrived together leading the race. But the Wenger team are orienteers, while Bergson are climbers. There were 8 routes for every team to complete and Bergson were much more successful.  As a penalty, teams had to complete a running circuit that was rather long and included wading the river back and forth. This meant that Bergson left half an hour earlier and managed to keep the lead for the rest of the stage.

From the end of canoe section teams first walked three kilometers to the garage where their bikes were stored and from there they biked  another ten kilometers to the camp where the race is headquartered. This complex procedure was selected as the path lead around coal power plant Prunéřov. It’s not a nice sight and there was no reason to spend two hours walking around it.

At the arrival to the transition area the difference between the first two teams remained 30 minutes. On the first stage, Team Lokal Blok suddenly appeared in third position. Now the mystery of how it happened was also revealed. They missed two CPs on the first trek. This is allowed this year, but no one expected such a strong team to do it as the fastest teams should not have problem to finish the whole course.

The next stage was skating uphill. Most of the road has new asphalt, but the hill is rather long and high. Teams had to run downhill, skating downhill was not allowed. It would be too fast a ride.

During the first night there were huge differences between teams. While strong teams pushed hard without rest, weaker teams have opted for rest and sleep. This was true even for some teams in the front positions.

A biking section over 100 kilometers long followed. It finally took teams to the Krusne Mountains - real mountains. One team measured on their watches that they climbed almost 8000 meters in the first stage only, and these mountains were even higher. You could save a lot of climbing by taking the right route, but from the map it was not clear which paths would be rideable. Even Wenger sometimes opted for going up and down rather than straight on a bad path.

Berghaus gained another hour of advantage during this section to take their total lead to a hour and half. The race unfortunately ended for Czech Adidas Terrex. They opted to withdraw as one of them was cooked from the second checkpoint of the race. Salomon-Suunto (formerly known as Tilak) has moved into third position. It seems Wenger do not want to chase Berghaus and they are concentrating on themselves, taking a pace they are comfortable with.

At this point the difference between fast and slow teams is considerable. While fastest teams were at the end of the biking stage, slower teams were still starting it.