Montane Kong Vinter
Racing the Montane Kong Vinter
Anna Movin / 19.01.2020
The Montane Kong Vinter Adventure Race is a winter fixture in the Danish Racing calendar, always taking place at the start of January, which guarantees some tough conditions.
The race offers three courses, including the Masters course which is open 23 hours, the Challenge course (8-14hours) and a 4-6 hour Fighter course. There’s also a Junior category of 6-14 hours and the race is for teams of 2 or 3. It has a reputation for some innovative challenges and visiting historic locations in Zealand.
One of this year’s participants was Anna Movin (who is one of the organizing team for the Yeti Adventure Challenge Silkeborg and the European Championships to be held later this year). Racing with Martin Lindgren and Adam Lasthein Poulsen as ‘Racing Team IHS’ they were the top mixed team in the Challenge course this year, and this is Anna’s report.
After a mass sprint start on mountain bikes from Hillerød CP 1 was a selfie at the fountain in the courtyard of Frederiksborg Castle, with meant that all the teams stayed here for a little while unwrapping waterproof packed cell phones and trying to get the team into the shot!
After a few CPs teams hit the mountain bike track. We were in a bunch of teams at this time but not moving the fastest as I am not a fan of tricky mud or slippery roots combined with hard pumped tires and a map board on the handlebars. We followed the mountain bike track until CP8 and left for some tricky CPs in the forest.
From TA1 we went foot orienteering in the gardens around Fredensborg Castle. Looking at the maps we planned to follow the paths a lot, but the terrain was very open and crossing between them was much easier than expected.
Next it was back on the mountain bikes through the forest to CP2, where we arrived in second place. There were 3 tasks to complete here. First, we went “vertical orienteering”. A number of trees in the forest were marked on the map and to get the CPs we had to climb, some with and some without ropes. My job was to find the trees while my two tall team mates did the climbing faster than monkeys (sometimes I helped by pushing one of them up into the tree).
Task 2 was a labyrinth which had to be completed by all of the team one by one. The atmosphere in the TA was great with the Redbull Wigwam and loud music. After about one hour of orienteering in the forest we could continue on mountain bikes and left the TA as the first Challenge mixed team.
The maps on the last stage were spiced by insets of Google map and other types of maps, which meant that the navigator had to keep a cool head all the time. The route changed from big forest roads to small walking paths and small bridges over wet land.
The wind was picking up and it felt as we were pushing all the time into a strong headwind. Fortunately my team mates were strong and had big shoulders to hide behind!
Several times along the 3 mountain bike stages we saw the result of the mud and wet dirt roads as several teams had to stop for a flat tire. The under 21 category teams was all ahead of us and we stopped for a while to try to help a team with a chain jam. They told us that unfortunately the chain broke a few minutes later, which meant that for the rest of the route one member had to push and carry the bike or get pulled or pushed by team mates. What an impressive effort!!
The final 8 CPs were on a mountain bike track again and we dreaded more mud, but this track was smooth with great flow and loads of twisting and turning. It took about one hour to do the track and nightfall was getting closer. We turned on the bike lights but arrived at the finish line after just over 7 hours of racing and just before we would have need of our big head lamps. Dinner was served as warm soup and cold Spybrew beers especially brewed for the race, which compensated for the cold showers.
What a great way to spend a Saturday. We had a great day of racing at a well-organized race with a continuous forward flow, which is important at this time of year to keep warm.
You can find the full results on the race Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/kongvinteradventureracing/
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