Patagonian Expedition Race
Cycling, Suffering and Scenery
Rob Howard / 17.02.2016
On the second day of the Patagonian Expedition Race all of the teams were on stage two, the epic 271km bike ride across the Steppe grasslands South-East Patagonia. The leaders would finish the ride before nightfall, but the majority continued into a second night of riding as they struggled to reach the transition at CP6, the point where they could finally pack their bikes away, for a while at least.
Riding into the wind was always going to be hard, but the weather has been as good as you can hope for here. Apart from a few showers it’s been dry and the wind has been nothing like as strong as it could have been. Yes, it’s been windy especially in the afternoons, with gusts up to around 50mph at times, but there have been no constant high winds and teams have not always been riding into them head on. It was very cold on the first night of the race, but in the day there has been a lot of sunshine.
Even so, it’s a monster ride, just in distance alone, and is surely further than most of the teams have ridden in one go before. Some found it too much or succumbed to injury and teams PRS Fit and TBC were the first to pull out of the race. Team captain of T.B.C Lucy Shepherd suffered from an elbow injury after a bike fall and could not continue, while Dale Moomaw from PRS Fit was badly dehydrated and required medical attention.
Race leaders YogaSlackers and East Wind didn’t let up their fast pace, with the US team opening up a lead and being the first to complete the ride and set off on the next trek. They held a substantial lead over East Wind but I’m told lost time with a navigation mistake approaching CP6 and no one knows the positions of the teams now.
Both are setting off on the first trek with night approaching and will have to decide whether to sleep in the colder conditions on the mountain. (Jason Magness of YogaSlackers confided in the Race Director that he felt they’d made some poor choices and pushed too hard early in the race.)
These two teams were well ahead of the chasing pack which includes The Godzone Adventure Team Merrell Adventure Addicts, and Canadian Team Mind Over Body. For a time between CP3 and CP5 they were all racing together and these 3 teams were in CP4 at the same time, which had the marshals rushing around a bit! This was at Estancia Laguna Blanca where the CP was in the porch of one of the ranch houses and the kind couple who lived there allowed occasional visitors to pass through their simple living room cum kitchen to get to the toilet.
This part of the course was one of the most scenic, taking teams off of the gravel roads and onto narrower trails that wound their way across the wide open grasslands from one Estancia to the next. Apart from the sheep herds there was lots of bird life, and the ostrich-like Nandus were the most noticeable, often being startled by the teams and running alongside them for a while in panic.
There were lagoons alongside the trail as well, filled with migratory ducks, geese and wading birds, including some flamingos, which brought a dash of bright colour to the landscape. The vistas were immense, looking out over hills and across a huge grass plain to a large shimmering lagoon in the distance. This was big sky country and dramatic cloud patterns formed and changed throughout the day.
Whether the teams were in any condition to enjoy the scenery very often was doubtful but Team Norcal Odyssey told the staff they were enjoying every minute of it! This US team, along with fellow countrymen Team Sherpa were well placed as well, and not far behind them was Team Patagonia Germany.
Before darkness fell the only other team I saw were Mila Finland, who are nursing one exhausted team member, and at present there is little or no information about where the other teams are.
SleepMonsters
