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A Course Full of Challenges

Rob Howard / 20.09.2009

Racing begins on 'Day Zero' with the Prologue in Wulong and this will be exactly the same as last year. It is a short, fast blast around the town centre to raise the profile of the race in town before the serious racing begins. It starts with a 3km run on a circuit across the town's two central bridges, followed by a 4km cycle route, which takes teams to the start of the rafting down the river. This finishes under the towns foot bridge, directly below the finish and teams cross the bridge one more time before racing back into the finish The leaders are expected to take just 50 minutes.

<b>Day One</b>

The day one start is in the Fairy Meadow, very close to the race hotel, and there is a 600m Le Mans style start to get teams to the bike pick-up point to begin the 34km bike stage. It may be a muddy start, but teams are promised some extensive singletrack before they arrive at TA1 and the first skills test which is Grass Skiing! Two of the team must be towed up hill, then ski down, before continuing on the 'biathlon', a 10km uphill run and ride stage. For this they will have two bikes between the team of 4 and can change riders as often as they like, but towing and 'two ups' are not allowed. This is the only part of the race where the team can separate into two pairs if they wish.

The biathlon finishes back at the day's start which doubles as TA2 and the days rest point, then comes a 14km run, including a steep descent, to take teams to a lake for a 5km paddle. This is followed by another running stage taking teams into some of the karst scenery of the region, where they descend a canyon and cross three natural stone bridges - abseiling off the last one ... then taking an elevator back to the top to cross the finish line!

<b>Day Two - The Long Day</b>

This is the longest day of racing, with the leaders expected to take around 8 hours to cover a total of 98km, and 40% of that time will be spent paddling.

The first activity on day two is raft making, using tire tubes, boards and ropes, for a 3km river crossing to TA1 where the bikes are collected. The next stage is 30km and it was this section which had to be replanned due to recent development so much of it is on sealed roads, but there is a good singletrack section half way through, weaving through forest and houses.

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