Aveyron Adventure Race

Exploring Aveyron

Rob Howard / 24.07.2013

Preparations are now underway for the Aveyron Adventure Race in the South of France, which is part of the AREuro Series, and one of the biggest races in France this year.  The race is organised by Adrien Seguret (an elite racer himself), who comes from this area and is passionate about showing visitors the natural beauty of his home province.

He started the race in 2010 as a 24 hour event and for the past two years it has been a 30 hour race, and part of the French national championships. This year it has joined the AR EuroSeries and is going to be a 70 hour non-stop, supported race.  Forty mixed teams of 4 will be taking part, mostly French, but with several Spanish teams coming over the Pyrenees to take part, and one travelling from the Czech Republic. (The organisers have produced the road book in English and Spanish especially, which is something most international races don’t manage to do.)

Most of the top French teams and racers are here competing, including past winners Raid Quechua, who will be up against Team Raidlight, Lafuma Rose and several other strong teams. They will be racing a course of just over 500km which includes mountain biking, kayaking (river and lake) rope works and canyoning, trekking and orienteering.  The course planners have kept the stages short to keep the course varied (and the support teams busy), so there are 14 sections, the longest being a 100km mountain bike ride, but that too is broken up with some orienteering along the way.

Seguret explained that he preferred a supported race to keep the entry cost to teams low, and that the race will provide all the necessary equipment for the ropes stages so that novice teams don’t have to invest in all the gear to take part (or carry it either).

The race starts this afternoon (Weds) with a short prologue and teams are currently checking in.  This is mainly registration and issuing of the race bibs and Sportident timing chips, which is taking place in the centre of the small town of Nant, where the race will begin. (The mandatory equipment has been kept to a minimum and there will be no gear checks at registration, but there will be spot checks out on the course for all teams.) Tonight all the teams will use the local camp ground which is by the municipal pool and the race start is tomorrow at 8am.

Conditions are likely to be very hot, but teams will have to watch out for localised storms. Driving here yesterday we hit one of these and the temperature dropped from 35C to 17C, tree limbs were blown onto the road, and the rain and hail were so hard it was impossible to see anything ahead of you. Hopefully any such storms will be few and far between and the sun will shine on Aveyron for the rest of the week!

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