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Rivers and Restarts

Rob Howard / 23.08.2005

On Tuesday night the wind picked up and the rains increased as forecast, but the majority of the teams were safely in the dry in the Auction Mart building at TA4. The two leading teams, Aberdeen Asset Management and Live Life had already left, and could be seeking shelter in bothies or pushing on through the bad weather. Total-adventure.co.uk in third place chose not to remain in the comfort of TA4 in the height of the storm, but set off as soon as their time-out was completed at 9.55pm.

As teams arrived at the transition stories of their ride during the day were told, and most concerned the river crossing with their bikes midway between CP10 and CP11. The river was high and the crossing carrying bikes difficult … but this did not stop the combined Alpinebikes/High 5 on Orange team doing it 3 times. But then they did like the idea of being on T.V.

They’d crossed once, with good technique and stopped in the bothy on the far side where they’d managed to get a fire going. Then the TV helicopter landed and the cameraman came in and said he’s not filmed a crossing yet. “No problem!� Said the team. “We’ll do it again.� And they did, crossing back over, and then crossing a third time for the cameras. As there are 5 of them Robyn Frew got a ride up in the helicopter to watch the action from above.

Even when tonight’s storm is past the implications of the weather for the race are not over, as there will be many more rivers to cross, and given the volume of rainfall some could become impassable. It’s possible there will be further course changes as a result.

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