Mountain Hardwear Open5 Adventure Race Series #5
Open Adventure Series Finale at Coniston
Anna Gracie / 29.11.2007
With series positions to be decided, a long winter break approaching, a spectacular location and the increasing popularity and quality of James’ races, all lead to the highest Open5 numbers for the year when a total of 337 athletes started the race.
There was a great atmosphere at the event centre based in the warm and welcoming John Ruskin village school. Wilfs café were working double time on the bacon rolls and the Accelerate shop was busy with athletes checking out the latest kit and eyeing up Christmas presents. There were also lots of happy children running around watching their parents prepare for the race and it created a great family atmosphere and day out.
Looking at the maps there was plenty of route choice and decisions to be made with some testing navigation up on Coniston Fell. On the Run route there were a few high scoring checkpoints close to the event centre then a challenging spread of lower scores spread out over the fells. James had found some great locations for the checkpoints too, with a couple under bridges, one down an old mineshaft and another at the end of a steep canyon accessed through a very deep puddle!! The views were spectacular and it was a great sight to see racers dotted all over the fell taking different routes and disappearing and reappearing around a maze of hills and crags. There were two low scoring checkpoints to the north that the majority of people dropped to concentrate on the more centrally located ones.
The Mountain Bike route was slightly more obvious and a fairly clear loop stood out. The majority of the racers started up the west side of the map onto the web of quiet roads and bridleways, where the riding was fast, technical at times and a lot of fun. The fast teams made it to the top of the course past the village of Skelwith Bridge. Tim Higginbottom pushed hard and managed to clear the entire bike course!! The loop continued back over Hawkshead Hill and finished with a great fast decent on forest tracks into Coniston. The entire route was ridable (for some) and it made you remember why you love Mountain Biking some much.
As teams return to the finish and made their way back to the event centre to download, the teams compared routes and calculated scores – it was going to be tight.
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