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Windmills in the Clouds

Rob Howard / 09.11.2009

After a night spent in Lousa (either in the sports hall, or a hotel for those with a bigger budget) it was time to restart the race on Monday morning. The 12 teams who had come without support and were relying on race support were quickly finding it hard going. The bus was late to arrive in Lousa last night and the bags didn't get to town until 1.30 in the morning, which meant some teams had to wait until then to get their maps and kit to start planning for the next day and for the rest of the race.

Rested or not, they had to make their way above the town to a ruined castle to restart the race at 08.00. They were supposed to walk up ... but there was a mass traffic jam of team vehicles up there and the start was delayed by 15 minutes to allow everyone to arrive and while the race trackers were given out. The teams hadn't seen the previous day's results, but most had a good idea how they'd done ... not all though. The rule that teams had to score exactly 100 points on the, now infamous, first section yesterday had not been widely understood, and teams who scored over 100 were blissfully unaware they'd not been credited with it. These included Nike/Beaver Creek, and Ertips, who did put in a protest when they heard.

It seems most of the leaders who did score 100, were also unaware of this ruling ... they just did so by chance! Orion Health and Explore were both surprised to hear about it ... they'd just scored the magic 100 by luck! Mikael Lindnord of Explore also said he was confident his team could clear the whole course, including all the bonus CP's. It was a bold prediction and time will tell if it is accurate.

Teams were now focused on their tactics for the race ahead, and Monday's trekking and riding stages, which offered a variety of options. They streamed out past the castle and headed up the valley into the forested hills and the Schist villages, aiming to collect as many checkpoints as they could. The villages are constructed of an attractive brown schist stone and traditionally supported localised agriculture of goat herding and subsistence farming, but had fallen in decay through depopulation. Some of the villages the teams visited in the day were still in a state of semi ruin and partially deserted, but others were reconstructed and inhabited again, with their narrow alleys and streets repaved and the village fountains flowing again.

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