Czech Adventure Race 2012

Varied Challenges into the Finish

Jan Smolik / 04.08.2012

Around the Thursday noon the first teams set up for the second trekking stage of the race which included Bolscross. This discipline deserves some explanation. There is this guy called Bols and you just need to give him two kilometers of ribbons, some valley, pond, rocks etc. and he will come up with something. It is always different, sometimes you dive six meters into water, sometimes you run up waterfalls, but it always challenging and lot of fun.

This year’s Bolscross was set up in a deep valley of a creek. Bols spent two days running around finding rocks it was possible to scramble up, climb with the help of rope or net and gullys in which you were able to walk down. It took an hour and quarter for fastest team to finish, but it fulfilled its goal. Teams were looking forward to the ordinary trekking stage.

Bolscross apparently has also healing effects. Team Vertical Dissidents reported a bad knee miraculously got healed on the course. Or rather when they finished Bolscross they were sure they could go on with the ordinary trek and went for CPs they originally wanted to skip.

Trekking continued again across several castles. The most interesting CP was actually located in the mine under the castle. One unfortunate team failed to read CP description and climbed to the top of the hill …

There was also a skating section to make a little change. During the trekking stage Berghaus/Accom/Merida was continually increasing its lead over Wenger/Estim. Czech Adidas Terrex (last year winners and European Champions) were second, Salomon Suunto held third place and EPO/Lenoši (Lenoši meaning lazy men) were fourth.

A hundred kilometers of biking was last long stage. The race heated up during it, but not between the first two teams. They both went their own race and they were not threatened by other teams. But EPO Lenoši slowly began to cut minutes from the lead of Salomon Suunto.

The last stage was orienteering. Normally you would expect something around hour, but this one was on a large map, in steep hills, the map was not exactly new and it was after two days of racing. It took around 4 hours to complete which surprised some teams. Wenger/Estim did not take their headlights and they finished just before dark.