The Heb - Day One

Carrick Armer / 03.09.2016

Day one of The Heb - Race on the Edge dawned in a grey, windy manner, but the racers composed themselves, emerging from their tents for a fine breakfast at Lionacleit School and a quick brief from the Race Director and Course Planner. First order of the day was assembly at the foot of the local wind turbine and a group photo, simple enough to start with. The next part was more unique, as one pair of racers, Polly and Steve Lock, were called to the front of the next group pic. The Brit/Kiwi pairing are racing The Heb as part of their honeymoon, having flown over from Australia to Polly's native UK to get married last weekend.

Pictures out of the way, the race started proper, at the sound of an air horn, and the teams dived through a cleft in the dunes, onto the narrow beach (the tide was in), and played follow-the-leader behind Course Planner Tompsett on his fat bike, along and through the dunes to transition onto their bikes for the long pull north.

The majority of the riding in this year’s Heb course is non-technical road riding, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy. The winding, undulating roads up the west coast of Benbecula, through the old military town of Balivanich, started the inevitable creep of fatigue, though the wind was behind the riders to begin with. The rain was holding off, making the morning fairly pleasant, but the bogs of North Uist were beckoning, racers feet to wet. The turn of the main spine road to Cladach Cairinis and the road end marked the start of the first run section and the first encounter for many of good old fashioned peat cuttings.

This first foot orienteering section had three CPs: one on a shieling (ruin), one on a stream entering Loch Obisaray, and one on Eaval summit itself. All run CPs are optional, but each has a time value attached to it - miss one, and that penalty is added to your race time. Most teams and solos were making their calculations on the ferry over, some threw those plans out the window when confronted with a yomp across the bogs to the foot of the hill, others stuck to their guns. Many made the shieling checkpoint and decided that one would do, with discretion being better than valour and more to come during the day.

Back at the bikes, the road drag north continued, round to the west again, over the Committee Road alongside Maireval, and down to the start of the tidal ford to Vallay. Early arrivers found the tide not yet fully out, and the two closest channels approaching hub depth. All riders found a surreal washboarded crossing, two and a half kilometres of open, hardpacked sand, rideable on all of the multitude of bike styles that were packed onto the ferry last night. There was much debate in the run-up to the event as to what was best - the race website recommended a hardtail mountain bike, the connoisseurs choice was a cyclocross bike, the majority of racers have turned up with whatever they're comfortable on, including, under the steerage of Dan Gates, a 3-inch tyred fat bike. He was grinning as the extra rubber damped the worst of the watery washboard surface.

Over on Vallay, another orienteering section awaited with four controls, more-or-less at the cardinal points of the island, including an islet, a ruin, and a monument to a former owner and inhabitant of the island, George Beveridge, who built the imposing Vallay House, close to where the racers landed. Strict instructions in the road book included the time the tide would start lapping its way around the riders toes as they left, though the bay rarely fills to beyond waist depth, it would be an uncomfortably soggy ride out for those who contravened.

The rain, which had held off until the mid afternoon, made the ride onwards and eastwards to Lochmaddy less and less comfortable, and the kayak section there even less so again. The short paddle section, on two-man sit-on-top boats familiar to any adventure racer of the past 10 years, was shortened again as the squall made itself felt, and those who hadn't donned waterproofs before the weather hit came off the water feeling the cold.  Eddie Winthorpe, one of those who hadn't pulled a jacket on, headed to the Taigh Chearsabhagh cafe close to the transition to get out of the wind and pull on the waterproofs and dry layers, admitting he'd been "a couple of minutes off a nasty situation".

More road work led the racers east and south and down to the new Hebridean Way trail, the first piece of proper 'mountain biking' on the race route at Langass Woods. A gravelly undulation brought the riders to a gate and a steep climb up the end of Beinn Langass, reducing many to pushing up the steep and not-quite-consolidated aggregate, but as the rain backed off and the wind dropped, the climb eased and the descent started.

Again the bike choice reared its head - those on MTBs found the steep, occasionally loose and wet, occasionally grass and mud descent a little easier, most on cyclocross bikes gritted their teeth and tried to hold onto them. Fiona Russell, who'd mentioned trying to get some extra mountain bike work in during her race preparation, was clenching her teeth and trying to hang on, unhappy with the prospect of the more technical terrain. After Langass Lodge, at least, the gradient eased, and the next two sections of the Hebridean Way were more undulating than steep, although still technical - the not-quite-finished trail across the heather being the epitome of Hebridean riding - frustratingly vague and boggy in places, firm and fun in others.

The last of the off-road done for now, the riders turned into the headwind and put their heads down for home. South across the causeway back to Benbecula, and then through a twisting network of minor roads and a final farm track trail back to Lionacleit School and a well deserved finish at the Shellbay campsite. Tales of wonder and woe were exchanged over lasagne and cheesecake, and the social side of the races of the islands rose again. Tonight food, showers and sleep. Tomorrow's another Heb racing day, to South Uist and perhaps beyond ...

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