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Winning team Bones\' first-hand report

Jason Quinn / 23.03.2007

Team Bones (USA) racer Jason Quinn gives SleepMonsters an exclusive first-hand report of their race. Jason and team-mates Roy Malone, Chris Barry and Louisa Jankins took first place in the competition, travelling 450 km from Costa Rica’s southern Pacific coast and making it to the northern Caribbean coast in about 91 hours. The team donated $500 of their prize money to a one-room school that served as a PC for the race.

It could have been the start of a classic Western. High noon in the hot sun, a duel just beginning. But rather than a gunfight it was a wild race through the jungles and rivers and mountains of Costa Rica, that began on the deserted beach. It had to be noon, because the spit of land that we started on is under water when the tide is in, so for that day either noon or midnight... and like any good race director, Mike has a slightly masochistic bent and there is far more potential for physiologic carnage when you exert yourself during the hottest part of the day in the tropics.

When one of our teammates arrived without her bike and box of gear, we were worried that our race might not even begin. But the race organization only puts on races in their free time, and runs a wildly successful adventure tourism business with fleets of bikes and kayaks. So after a little wheeling and dealing, we had ourselves the gear we’d need to actually do the race. Granted it wasn’t the carbon fiber goodies we were used to, but the saying holds true in Costa Rica as well... beggars can’t be choosers.

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