Questars Adventure Race - Chilterns
The Winter Series Wraps up with some Questars Magic in the Chilterns
Questars / 22.02.2026
The Questars magic continued as we managed to find a sunny weather window for the fourth and final event of our 2025/26 Winter Series. Despite the fact that the venue had had rain for 30+ days straight, the course area held up reasonably well and wasn’t as wet and muddy as we had feared.
It was nice to see a number of families out racing with us with the likes of regular racers Simon Jennison, Rich Bennett, Oscar Sly and Darren Joint all being joined on the day by their children.
As is often the case, the majority set out on foot first with 70% of racers opting for foot over bike to start the day. With 350m of climbing it was one of our flatter run courses but at around 26km it was slightly longer than normal to make up for it. Five teams managed to clear the course with Campbell Walsh quickest in 2:12, followed by Ben Hawkins (2:26), David Chaplin (2:41), Mark Montgomery (2:43) and Andrew Connradi (3:17).
Campbell also had the most profitable run, picking up an excellent 2.79 points per minute, followed by Dan Thorby (2.75) and Ben Hawkins (2.52). In the Female category, Victoria Honour had the most profitable run, picking up 2.1 points per minute followed by Team ‘In Search of Control’ (Pollie Boyle and Julia Robson – 2.06) and Jen Hunt (2.02). In the Mixed Category, Emma & Richard Gill had the most profitable run picking up 2.35 points per minute, followed by Rob Smart & Bonnie van Wilgenburg (2.21) and Imogen Walsh and Andrew & Alex Cawthorne (2.06).
At over 53km and around 600m of climbing, the bike was a biggie! Despite this, five teams managed to clear the course with Damon de Boor fastest in 2:53, followed by Alan Elder (2:58) Team ‘On Yer Bike’ (Robert Carter, Ed Gurney in 3:21), Eugene (4:30) and Andrew Wayland (4:49).
Campbell Walsh completed the double and had the most profitable bike, picking up an impressive 2.69 points per minute, followed by Damon de Boor (2.48) and Dan Thorby (2.38). In the Female category, Jen Hunt had the most profitable bike, picking up an excellent 1.94 points per minute followed by Steph Gibbins (1.92) and Nicola Adams (1.82). In the Mixed Category, Rob Smart & Bonnie van Wilgenburg had the most profitable bike picking up 2.08 points per minute, followed by Emma & Richard Gill (1.94) and Imogen Walsh and Andrew & Alex Cawthorne (1.87).
It was a course that we never planned for anyone clearing, although Campbell Walsh got far closer than we expected, dropping just one checkpoint - a couple less than we thought was going to happen. The run leg proved most profitable with teams picking up an average of 1.74 points per minute compared to 1.60 on the bike. For the first time in a long time, rewards for being back early outweighed penalties for being late – probably a reflection of the course being a bit less muddy and running a bit faster than most people expected as we know you guys don’t like being back early!
Campbell Walsh took the overall win in the Open category; Jen Hunt took the overall win in the Female category and Bonnie van Wilgenburg and Rob Smart took the overall win in the Mixed Category.
Our Special Checkpoints made a reappearance, they carried no point value but entered finders into a spot-prize draw with the following riddle leading racers to their location: There are two of these within a crow’s kilometre of this place, Something ET may use to contact his base. The answer: telephone boxes! Congratulations to all those who worked out the riddle and found the telephone boxes (especially if you actually managed to find the checkpoint hidden right at the top of the phone box!).
Thank you to everyone who came out to take part and support at our event and helped to make it a great end to our Winter Series. Huge thank yous as well to Abbie, Debbie, Robert, Jim, Hillary, Jerry, Sian and Will who volunteered as marshals for the day, Neil our medic and Dan, Naiche and Rob who provided excellent photography. Thank you everyone!
We now turn our attention to our 2026 Summer Series and what a Series we have in store for you all! 25 years of Questars wouldn’t be complete without a stop in Wiltshire where we start our Summer Series on 21 March, followed by 18 April back in the Chilterns, 13-14 June for our two-day in the Brecon Beacons (early bird closes at the end of the month), 4 July in the Malvern Hills, 22 August in West Yorkshire and 12 September returns to the South Downs before our big anniversary event – 25 hours on the Long Mynd on the 24-25 October weekend. We can’t wait to share some more adventures with you all! Further details can be found on our event pages.
Full results can be found here and pictures here (where you can search using a selfie and download high-res images for free).
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