Aveyron Adventure Race

Raid Nature 46 Take The Lead

Rob Howard & Anne-Marie Dunhill / 26.07.2013

It has been a confusing day at the Aveyron Adventure Race, for everyone involved. The course has proved too long for the teams, who are having to take short cuts to move forward and miss some optional stages, mainly orienteering.  This has resulted in most teams mountain biking all day (and probably into the night), taking different routes and being unsure about their rank and who they are racing against. 

From this morning teams were riding from the end of the kayaking stage, taking a 100km route over rolling farmland and wooded hills, to reach the town of Naucelle (Transition 5).  Along the way they also had to stop off for another foot orienteering stage, though this was optional ... or that was the plan anyway.

However, it was taking teams much longer than expected to complete the stage.  The weather was hot once again and the teams were tired, some not having slept, so their pace slowed. By the time they reached the orienteering course at Peyrebrune, about half way into the ride, it was clear even the leaders were unlikely to make the 17.00 cut off at Naucelle.

This lead to all but one team opting to simply skip the orienteering and carry on riding. Most didn’t even look at the orienteering map, and had they done they would have realised this course was nothing like as severe as the one they were presented with yesterday. This one was an 8km permanent course in an area of mixed woodland scattered with boulders, with 13 checkpoints, the closest of which was less than a minute away from the start point. There was a 10 minute penalty for each one missed, but everyone except Raid Nature 46 wrote the stage off, taking the wider view that they now needed to move more quickly around the course.

Raid Nature 46 are almost the only team who are thinking strategically, and it is paying dividends.  On the first big orienteering stage they ran for an hour, getting as many CP’s as they could (which kept them in the top 10). From then on they managed themselves well, keeping a comfortable rhythm and stayed towards the front of the race, cutting out some checkpoints on the long trek (which is not their strength). 

This allowed them to reach today’s orienteering early enough to run and get 8 checkpoints, gaining them an 80 minute advantage over all the other teams. What’s more they went on to complete all but one of the mountain biking checkpoints, more than any other team, and arrive at Naucelle 5 minutes ahead of the 17.00 time barrier.  Had they been late they would have incurred a 10 hour penalty, so it was a close run thing.

Raid Quechua had tried to complete the course up to the point they arrived at the orienteering, but by the time they arrived there they realised it was not going to work. They eat and slept briefly before carrying on riding and then had to cut out 7 checkpoints to reach Naucelle, incurring 21 hours of penalties!

The result of this was they lost the lead to Raid Nature 46 at Naucelle, though they are only a couple of hours behind, which is not a great deal in a race of this nature.  (Raid Nature had penalties for missing earlier CP’s and some orienteering checkpoints.)

The team support for Raid Nature 46 is Stephane Cornez, (whose wife is racing on the team and who is here with his their 2 young children), and I asked him about the teams approach to the race.  He said, “They have been making good choices and Eric Maire is the brains in the team, and the planner. They’ve kept themselves in good condition and last night were all in good spirits and made a 35 minute transition from the kayaks to bikes in the middle of the night. I hope they can win – they aim to continue to race intelligently to the end.”  While in Naucelle they were much more purposefully in transition than other teams and were excited to find they had taken the lead in the race.

Both teams skipped the next orienteering stage at Naucelle, as did all the other teams, and set off on their bikes once again for the next stage.  Although it is hard to work out all the penalties other highly ranked teams are X-Bionic and Chaud Patates, but the later suffered with punctures (and the lack of a pump) and incurred the 10 hour penalty by arriving at Naucelle after 17.00.

Further back on the course teams are racking up some impressive penalty scores and some are having to be moved forward by their support crews to catch up. Those who arrive at Naucelle after 21.00 will miss the next stage and be driven to the following transition to resume trekking later tonight.

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