The Heb - Race on the Edge
Reaching for the Edge
Carrick Armer / 05.09.2016
The Race on the Edge is now over, and a new Hebridean adventure seems to have captured a few new fans of the islands. The party at the Polochar carried on late into the night, with the sea safety team being amongst the very last to leave and the much vaunted accordion supremo taking repeat bookings once he's recovered from this one.
As a new format of race, and a very mixed level of experience and confidence among the racers, it seems like a great coup has been pulled off. The course design pushed the racers physically, especially on the long road rides of day one, but while navigationally simpler than historic Hebridean races, the run legs still offered a challenge to push those wanting to stand on the podium. The 'time penalty for missed CPs' format meant that the race grouping stayed relatively compact, but afforded competitors no exact view of who'd done what, keeping the competitive edge alive. While the weather in such a remote group of islands will always be changeable, for the vast majority of the event the temperatures have been mild, the Sunday sun was blisteringly hot, especially when refelected off the expanse of white sand. The 60+mph gusts of wind that threatened to stop the race leaving the islands on Monday morning very kindly held off a little, making the first part of the long journey home a bit lumpy but not too awful.
The Race Director offered his thanks to all the sponsors, as is traditional if not contractual, and to the excellent crew of marshals and safety, before announcing the final standings as follows:
Male Solo
1st Craig Mattocks
2nd Sean McFarlane
3rd Eddie Winthorpe
Female Solo
1st Amy Goodill
2nd Elizabeth Adams
3rd Maria Dixon
Male Pair
1st Bruce McGorum & Gerry MacLachlan
2nd Tim Rees & Errol Kobus
3rd Ryan George & Paul Cole
Female Pair
1st Catriona Morrison & Caroline Wallace (Overall Pairs winners)
2nd Katy Boocock & Dagmar Borrowman
3rd Lizzie Aitken & Brigid MacKenzie
Mixed Pairs
1st Polly Weston & Steve Lock
2nd Naomi Dodds & Jamie Greig
3rd Fiona Russell & Gordon Lacey
And that wraps up The Heb - Race on the Edge for this year. Thanks all for reading, I'm sure the organisation hope to see you out there next time. Slainte Mhath!
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