XTrail Expedition Race China
Full Speed Ahead at China's Expedition Race
Rob Howard / 25.09.2016
The XTrail Altay Expedition Race in Northern China is now well underway. After yesterdays splash and dash prologue around Kanasi, which wasn’t timed into the race itself, the teams set off at 10.00am local time for the first trek of the race.
Heading up the first hillside to CP1 some different routes were taken and there was a cross country section to get to CP3 set in a marshy valley, reached after a high point for the trek of over 2000m.
Beyond this it looks like the teams had trails to follow and this helped to keep the leading pack close together for much of the way, though they were quick to spread out further down the field. This is a very mixed field with world class teams racing for the prize money and occasional racers in China for the experience. (The leaders were at CP5 by the time the back markers made it to CP2.)
There are also 3 Chinese teams who will have less long race experience and one of these, Team Xin Jiang, pulled out of the trek and part of the following paddle to make an early move onto the short course. So too did teams adventureracing.co.nz and Licorish Tiger Adventure.
Teams Red Bull, Multisport.fi, Thule and Haglofs Silva lead the way but others were chasing not far behind as they descended back to Kanas Lake for the only paddling stage of the race. The pace was fast as expected and much quicker than the predicted times with the leaders taking 6.5 hours not the 9 the race plan suggested. (Ahead of the race the Race Director, Wei Jun, had already revised the winning time to 36 hours, rather than the 65 hours teams had entered for – so more of mini-expedition and probably a non-stop race now.)
The kayaking stage took teams from the transition to the Northern tip of Kanas Lake, one of China’s most remote and expensive tourist destinations, then back down the full length of the Lake to CP2, which is back near the race start. I can’t find specifications for the kayaks anywhere, but they are using kayaks and not the ubiquitous sit-on-tops, which is good to see at an international race.
On this stage Red Bull, Thule and Haglofs Silva pulled away from Multisport.fi a little, but it is still incredibly close. The lead 3 teams arrived at TA2 within 4 minutes of each other after more than 10 hours of racing. Red Bull and Thule Adventure are the teams with most experience of China and the faster multisport, stage racing format in recent years, so it’s no surprise to see them setting the pace.
The predicted time for the 34km kayak was 3 hours but the leaders took longer this time (4 hours exactly) so this pulled the race back onto the 36 hour timetable a little.
The leaders arrived at TA2 just as darkness fell. (There is almost exactly 12 hours of daylight in Altay this time of year with sunrise at 8am and sunset at 8pm.) So teams will continue beyond TA2 to tackle the next 47km trek and then a 5km orienteering stage in the dark, and it maybe the night navigation will split the leaders – there may even be some hide-and-seek going on. (That said, looking at the map there appears to be a trail much of the way – the planners playing safe and used to the faster stage race planning, without a strong navigational challenge. I will post the map to our Facebook page.)
You can follow the live tracking of the race at http://live.arworldseries.com/xtrail/index-en.htm
The course outline is below with distances and expected times, and as you can see it’s a very straightforward course; trek, paddle, trek, mountain bike, finish.
Distance Winning Time Course Open CP’s
Trekking 53km 9 hours 1-6
TA1/CP7 0 0.2 hours 18 hours
Kayaking 34km 3 hours 8/9
TA2/CP10 0 0.2 hour 24 hours
Trekking 47km 9 hours 11-13
Orienteering 5km 1 hour 14-18
TA3/CP19 0 1 hour 42 hours
MTB 96km 7 hours 20-25
TA4/CP30 0 0.2 hours 54 hours
Abseil 0 0.2 hours 26
TA5/CP26 0 0.2 hours 56 hours
MTB 59km 4 hours 27-29
TA6/CP30 0 0.2 hour 64 hours
Trekking 2km 0.2 hour
Finish
Totals 300km 36.3 hours
SleepMonsters
