One-Tel Hebridean Challenge
Loop the loop
John Laughlin - Macpac Smartwool / 10.07.2005
Teams were set off on a 7km road bike section at one minute intervals in reverse order of ranking, with leaders Burach starting last. By the first tag the faster teams had caught up the slower riders who started before them and it made for an exciting few minutes as teams struggled to identify their incoming riders.
The bedlam subsided as a parallel section began with two team members heading off in opposite directions around a cycling and running loop in the high hills of west Lewis. One of the racers headed south down a tough mountain bike track up and over a high pass back to sea level, where the bike was left and a run begun over the hills to a road on the west coast. Meanwhile the other team member had ridden around the loop the opposite way on a road bike, leaving this at the road end for their team mate to collect later, and then running up into the same hills but with a couple of extra checkpoints, making this a harder loop.
Once over the hills they had to then collect the mountain bike and ride out to the start point, but not before hopping off the bike to scramble up Mealaisbhal, the highest hill on Lewis. Unfortunately the clouds were low and the views non-existent, but perhaps at this stage in the race, people were beginning to just get the head down to get to the finish.
Embarrassingly, Alec Keith, a top mountain marathon runner in leading team Burach managed to go up the wrong hill, losing precious time to the chasing 2x2. It was a sort of justice, as Iona Robertson and John Houlihan of 2x2 had each done the same thing the previous day on other hills across the glen. A minor panic had set in when they were very late coming off the hills, but by the end of the week these little episodes were fantastic opportunities for a bit of the jovial banter and good humour that the race is famed for.
SleepMonsters
