Open 12
Wensleydale Wanderings
Chris Morgan (Team Top Bananas) / 09.07.2010
Despite heading down to the Dales fairly frequently, I've never been all the way in to Wensleydale. Driving down on a lovely Friday evening we could see what a great venue it was - rolling hills that would be runnable and rideable, and quiet villages. I was sure on the journey down that the route Google maps choose for us wasn't optimal, as the road was so narrow and windy. We found out the next morning during the coach journey that the alternative route was equally windy - with at least one competitor arriving at the start feeling a little queasy,
We awoke to a beautiful sunny Saturday morning, in a campsite field full of cars and bikes. The campsite quickly emptied, with everyone decamping to West Burton for registration and the start. The Open 12 this year used a different format, with the 12 hours of racing split between two days, with an overnight camp in the middle. This meant a little extra kit faff before the start, as we had to pack a bag full of overnight kit, as well as a transition bag.
After the briefing there was more kit faff (you can never have enough!), and then a slight hiatus while we waited for the buses to take us to the start. Clearly the coach company hadn't anticipated the narrow-ness and windyness of the roads as the coaches turned up about 30 minutes late having taken a number of wrong turnings. No-one was complaining though, it was very pleasant lazing in the sun on West Burton village green!
Eventually the buses arrived to take us to the start, just outside Ravenstonedale on the western side of the Dales. The journey along the small roads took the best part of an hour, and by the time we arrived the start was going to be about an hour later than anticipated. When we arrived we got the points, and started marking up our maps, and deciding what route to take. We felt we were unlikely to be able to clear the course, and so we decided to leave a couple of the lower pointed controls on the run stage, in the hope of getting more on the bike stage.
The run took us up over the top of Wild Boar Fell, down the other side and then along an old track into 'Hell Gill', the special stage before transition. This was a gill scramble, and much more pleasant than the name suggests - in fact it was very nice to cool off! Out the top of the gill and back into the sun to dry off, we headed to transition and our bikes.
The bike stage was in my book the most complicated part of the event to try and plan. Essentially the majority of the points were toward the North of the map, with a handful of low pointed checkpoints off a bridleway toward the South of the map. With no easy way back from the bottom of the map it was either commit to the low pointers in the South and risk missing out on high pointed checkpoints, or head along the top, and collect as many of the lower pointed checkpoints as time allowed afterward. We decided to take the safer option, heading along the top of the map and collecting high scoring checkpoints first.
SleepMonsters
