Dirt Weekend Adventure Race Sprint

As posted to the warthogs mailing list. Photos by Lehesta

Dirty Weekend Adventure Sprint 05.02.27

My first race report and adventure race so be kind!

Quantum Adventures, Dirty Weekend Adventure Sprint, happened yesterday
out in Grabouw on the Lebanon Trails. Leon and myself made up team
Chubby Penguins, we managed to get a house in Gordons Bay for the
weekend which acted as a nice half way house. Cant see the need to get
up super early on a Sunday morning to drive halfway around the world.

Guy the downhiller joined us for carbo loading pasta supper on
Saturday night along with his sexy girlfriend. Not quite sure what he
was carbo loading for though. No beers and early to bed so we had a
good start for the day. Up early with traditional porridge and soya
protein shake breakfast, make sure the bikes were not stolen during
the night and off we went to Grabouw.

Having done the energade triathlon I was kind of expecting a similar
event but with more mud and less salt water. I had my transition from
running shorts to cycling shirts with a nice fresh pair of socks all
planned. The nice lady at the registration shattered these thoughts
trying to explain the two lap system with a surprise event mixed in
the middle. So unless I was willing to risk flashing the world and
wasting minutes with three transitions I would have to deal with
running around in my cycling shorts and muddy socks.

And it was muddy. At 9:15 we had the pre race briefing, two laps of
run then cycle. With a water event, a swim across the dam in the
middle of the run (tubes optional). The surprise event was a sack race
between the run and the cycle. Let me tell you a sack race sounds like
a joke, but after a decent run its very hard to get a good bounce
going.

The start was split in two because the event had turned out bigger
than they thought(103 teams in total). We started in the first group
because we had registered online so got a low number. Anyone taking it
seriously was given the option to start up front.

So just after 9:30 we got the go and we were pointed to a bit of red
and white bunting stuck to a tree in the middle of a field. This was
not running along dirt roads!

The run was great fun though, through apple and pear orchards over a
few fences and round to a dam. At the dam we had the option of tubes,
which some people used. Thick mud up to your knee on the banks so I
was glad I had taken my shoes off. I was not so glad when I had to put
them back on! The dam was pretty low and I would guess it was probably
50-60 meters wide. So about 100m across and back.

Second part of the run was more fun, we crossed a stream about 3 or 4
times climbing up muddy banks and getting thoroughly muddy. The run in
total was meant to be 5km in total split into 2.5km laps. The feeling
was that it was more like 3.5km per a lap, it did seem a long time.
Then the sack races which did not hold to many surprises.

Then onto the cycle, I am not sure if it was a set Lebanon route or
one they pieced together but it was nice. The first bit was pretty
much climbing on jeep tracks, then into a bit of single track that was
not as steep. The rest was really nice fun single track all downhill
which everyone raved about. In the last couple of kilometers there was
a nasty climb on some dirt track before a really fast bit of dirt road
towards the finish.

I had some bad luck on the ride. On my first lap, on the first bump my
saddle made a huge twang sound and went all floppy. One of the two
bolts holding the saddle to the seat post broke off, leaving me with a
very dodgy saddle. At the next transition I cranked the remaining bolt
up and prayed. My prays were not answered, at the start of the single
track on the last lap I miss judged a bump and my back wheel jumped up
connecting my saddle to my rock hard bum. The saddle lost, luckily
Leon riding behind me picked it up my saddle and shoved it down the
back of his cycling shorts.

So I had to ride the last half of the last lap without a saddle, which
was interesting.

The event was good, few things which were worrying though. At two
places on the course you come out of the track across roads. These
roads where not busy at all but we were not expecting them and
traveling pretty fast. So with bad luck and a big fruit truck there
could have been some nasty accidents. The other problem was the rides
start and finish were both on the same single track, which were very
hidden with bushes. So people were riding in and riding out in
opposite directions. One guy had a nasty accident and was sent off to
hospital after he collided with two riders going the other way.

Winning time was about 1:48 we come in at 2:48 which we were very
happy about.