Cut Off by Floods at the Back of the Race

Rob Howard / 14.08.2014

Through the day the Glasbury transition on the river Wye remained busy right up until the 16.00 course closure when the last few teams were hustled onto the water.  These included SwedemountAR, Skandia and Team Cake, and they had a much swifter paddle than some earlier teams as the river had been rising rapidly all day.

Over the course of the day it rose more than 2 feet and changed from a gentle flow with plenty of shallows to a fast and turgid torrent. Fortunately the flood was moving down the river slowly, and the last teams to leave were comfortable in the more challenging conditions, so the water volume didn’t disrupt the race.

However, it was affecting teams further back on the course struggling to still reach the transition on their bikes. Three had been out overnight and were many hours late reaching the cut-off at Glasbury. The area they were in was also one without a mobile phone signal so the trackers were not updating and on one was quite sure where they were.

Czech AR, Vauclause Aventure Lafuma and Moxie Racers were the teams affected and it was a very long wait for the first of them to arrive at Glasbury – with Moxie Racers not coming in until just after 21.00 – a full 5 hours after the cut-off.

As expected the reason was high flood water which had cut-off their progress during the night. “There were floods everywhere,” said Chris Caulfield, “and we just could not get through as it wasn’t safe. We were turned back several times and even when we backtracked and got onto the roads there were still floods to negotiate.”

Despite their trials the teams all looked in good spirits and had been taking care of themselves. “We found a great cafe, and they let us sleep there,” said Caroline Bullard, “then we slept in a hut for a while.” (Kevin Stephens was sleeping on top of a chest freezer here, with his legs dangling over the end!)

Bullard has not raced since the 2011 World Champs in France and said. “What a welcome back to AR!” adding, “It’s a good job the race was in summer ... or the weather might have been bad!”

On arrival at Glasbury the team were given a food parcel and quickly set about using the kitchen and getting hot drinks. Soon they had toasted banana sandwiches on the go, and were looking at the maps for the new route instructions they’d been given – to ride directly to CP53 and continue on towards the transition at Talybont on Usk from there.

The teams who missed the cut-off for the paddle will get a 12 hour penalty, plus more penalties for missing the orienteering CP’s at Hay on Wye, which are now closed, and also for missing CP’s 51 and 52. It is a total of 21 hours of penalties, but that is set against the time the other teams will have taken to get those missed checkpoints, so they are still competitive.

Moxie Racers were still positive and keen to complete as much of the course as they could. They set off again quickly and will be back with the main group of teams in the race soon enough.

Behind them were Czech AR, who arrived at Glasbury at 22.30. I didn’t see this team but am told they’ve carried on as instructed and they had even collected some optional checkpoints on the way into Glasbury, rather than taking the quickest route, so they too are still racing competitively.

Last of all were Vaucluse Aventures Lafuma. They were out of contact for a very long period and race staff were having difficulty accessing the area to find them, but they did eventually. The French team had been told at Elan that they should short course it wasn’t possible for them to get all the checkpoints at the speed they were going, but they were determined to try.

Even when race safety staff found them in the flooded hills hours after the paddling cut-off time (which meant they were now a short course team anyway) they still refused to take a quicker and safer route out of the hills, determined to get to all the checkpoints. Hours later they did finally give in to the inevitable and agree to head directly to Talybont to catch up with the race there, but they hadn’t given in without up a fight.

Talybont is the start of the trek over the Brecon Beacons, and teams will hopefully have a good night for this final foot stage, which finishes with a caving section. In the evening the skies were clear and the hills free of cloud, so with a bright moon teams should find conditions on these hills easier tonight.

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