Adventure Racing World Championships

Enduro

The Adventure Racing World Championships start next Saturday in the Ecrins Alps in Southern France. The course makes it way down to the mediteranian and finishes on the Cote d'Azur.

The organisers summary of the race is:

• 70 teams, 30 nations
• Race’s length: more than 500km
• Positive elevation: about 18 000m
• A non-stop 5 to 8 days race itinerary
• Race maps at 1:50000 and 1:25000 without GPS
• Activities including raft, kayak, high altitudes mountains (hike with crampons), orienteering, caving, canyoning, via ferrata, ropes activities, mountain bike…

Two Irish racers will be competing (in two different multinational teams) this year, Avril Copland and myself. I've written a quick pre-race preview on my blog here.

All teams will be carrying trackers, so hopefully that will mean that we can be tracked online. The race website is here, where you can see all the information we have access to about the race to this point. Race updates should be linked from here after the race starts.

shotgunmcos

Cool! Best of luck to you and Avril. If the tracking is anything on par with the Terrex(which was awesome) it should be fascinating to follow

pgibbo

Best of luck to you both!

dapope

Really looking forward to following this race. Hopefully the tracking is good. Best of luck to Eoin and Avril and their teams!

It should be an interesting race up front. I had the pleasure of chatting to Nathan Faavae earlier this year at GodZone and I know his team are out for revenge. It will be difficult with Thule having some local knowledge. Axa-Adidas won't be far away either.

jeffontour

Looking forward to following this. All the best to the Irish in attendance, hope it goes well.

shotgunmcos

Enduro's team 'Brat Lupine' safely through the prologue with max points. Should be 50th team or so off tomorrow

link below to live tracker open from 15th 0630
http://live.raidinfrance.com/

shotgunmcos

18 stages to this race and the mountains are insane!! :eek: Check out the course stage flyovers. Brat Lupine doing well so far 8 hours in and mid pack. As wiith the Adidas Terrex a couple of weeks ago though, all teams generall start off well. Its when the 24 hour mark approached that it starts getting interesting...

shotgunmcos

Brat Lupine have lost Thomas Etter captain through mtb injury. Enduros team so down to 3 and will be unranked

shotgunmcos

Brat Lupine withdrawn it seems? Darn it. The sheer cost and logistics of even getting there and missing out on what looks like an amazing course. Im sure Enduro will go back with a vengeance

Dancing Pandas with Irelands only representative Avril Copeland still in and on stage 3

notenoughtime

The other three members of Enduro's team have withdrawn but Enduro is on another team who lost a person so is still out there racing. Not sure what team he is on yet but will post up if I hear any more....

Peterx

Good man Enduro!
After all the effort and expense getting there great to see he has found a team to continue with.

notenoughtime

Enduro on Team 66 now- GMPA Raid Adventure. They still won't be ranked but at least he's getting his full race.. assuming all goes ok. The team is all French so am sure the communication between them is fun!

Live update on leader board here http://live.raidinfrance.com/leaderboard/

notenoughtime

Check out the live tracking news page on raidinfrance.com for update on Enduro. He seems to be enjoying it all as all around him are dropping like flies. His new team down to three after one sustained rib injury in kayak section. Enduro describes himself as an adventure tourist rather an adventure racer! Avril's team also get a mention in the sleep monsters report and still have full team compliment but have missed some cut- offs along the way. Not long to go now- leaders expected into Roquebrune Cap Martin tomorrow but there is quite a spread on the field so will expecting teams to trickle in.

shotgunmcos

Overall the tracking isn't as good as the ADIDAS TERREX site a few weeks ago. Live GPS tracking would be cool for this. To read the reports that are just french just plonk them into google translate to read

jeffontour

Sounds like Enduro is having an interesting little trip. Is he on his 2nd or 3rd team now?

shotgunmcos

Its turning out to be a brute of a race. 10 teams over the line at this stage. Aididas Terrex blitzed a win at the Stirling 5 day but ended up a full 25 hours behind Seagate here. 19 more teams still on the full race but many will not finish in time. The remainder of the 64 initial teams who have not already withdrawn due to broken bones, plant stings, severe dehydration, altitude sickness to name but a few reasons, will invariably not make certain cut offs and won't finish.

This is unreal attrition and shows how hardcore proper AR racing is. Huge kudos to Enduro and Avril for hanging in there with the worlds best!! Respect!

Enduro

Well that was a fantastic experience. Easily the best AR I've done in Europe, and up there in my all time favourites list. It was a highly eventful race. The course was awesome in so many different ways. The adventure just kept on coming!

It was a a course well worthy of its world championship status. Teams were being spat out and short coursed left, right and center by the end. Skills, endurance, and sheer mental dogedness were tested to their limits.

I'll get started on a race report

Enduro

First part of the race report is now up here. I'll be working my way through the race as time allows!

Bugsy2000

Enduro wrote: »

First part of the race report is now up here. I'll be working my way through the race as time allows!

Parts 2 - 5 now up. Some great reading. You'd pack in as much adventure / activities in this one race as most of us would get through in a lifetime.

Enduro

I've finally finished writing the report on the race. It's broken into day by day accounts. That took longer to write than doing the race

As usual, if anyone has any questions, fire away!

Dunebuggy

Enduro wrote: »

I've finally finished writing the report on the race. It's broken into day by day accounts. That took longer to write than doing the race

As usual, if anyone has any questions, fire away!

Great Read!!! May the bad luck stay out there :-)

shotgunmcos

Worth a read folks but you will need several pots of tea... Its an Ultra Report indicative of Enduro, the man himself... 51 pages!!!!!!!:eek: :eek:

Pasted the report here in case you cannot access the blog

sconhome

A quick flick through the report and I understand why Irish 'adventure' races are referred to as 'messing'.

Thanks MCOS for the pdf, duly saved for perusal later.

BTH

Bumping an old thread just to throw up a report from the other Irish representative in this race.

http://arireland.com/2012/11/08/adventure-racing-world-championships-france-14th-22nd-september-race-report/

The stuff involved sounds incredible. I'd defo too soft for the half of it!!

nerraw1111

BTH wrote: »

Bumping an old thread just to throw up a report from the other Irish representative in this race.

http://arireland.com/2012/11/08/adventure-racing-world-championships-france-14th-22nd-september-race-report/

The stuff involved sounds incredible. I'd defo too soft for the half of it!!

That's a great read. Sounds amazing.