Slowly Down the River to Start the Race

Rob Howard / 30.04.2014

The 2014 Lycian Challenge got underway at 11.45 this morning in the small town of Kemer, which was a 45 minute drive from the race HQ at the Sun City Hotel in Oludeniz. It wasn’t just a matter of getting up for a leisurely breakfast and catching the bus though, far from it.

Yesterday’s race briefing was a confusing affair and left the teams anxious as to how the race would unfold. It is difficult for the race organiser and his team as their English is limited and there was a feeling some details may have been lost in translation. It’s rare to have a race where just about all the competitors speak none of the native language of the organisers.

Teams had been given their maps at the briefing, and they were a compilation of 1;25.000 maps that were huge – the biggest maps I’ve ever seen at a race. They were also not too sharp, as the printing or copying made the fine detail a little hard to read, a fact teams who have raced here before had mentioned in the lead up to the race.

However, teams were not issued the checkpoints until 06.00 this morning and from then until the race bus left at 09.00 there was frantic period of plotting, marking, cutting and laminating.  Just to lay the maps out took 6 tables and all the grid reference were 10 figure, which many were not familiar with.  There were soon teams scattered all over the hotel trying to prepare their maps in time for the start, and a few worried looks as the CP descriptions didn’t always appear to match the points on the map.  The teams know the navigation in this race will be uncertain at best, but they all face the same challenges.

Teams didn’t know what they were going to do at the start of the race as there was a mystery ‘urban challenge’.  They gathered at the end of the bridge in the town and after the customary speeches by local sponsors and politicians they were set off to race down to the riverside, where they found inflated tubes and paddles for what turned out to be a ‘water challenge’ – tubing down the river to CP1 where their bike boxes waited.

Large crowds watched them set of over the small weir below the bridge but teams were not going to risk paddling over it right at the start of a 4 day race, and most walked down as it was very shallow.  Soon they were all afloat making a colourful procession down the river, led by one of the Czech Salomon Suunto team. The rest of his team were well back however and the first to assemble their bikes and set off on the 90km ride to TA1 were adidas TERREX.

They planned to take an out and back route to CP2 so they could then use the roads to ride around to CP3, rather than go across country. (There is no restriction on riding on the roads in this race and no dark zones either).

The teams have a full day of cycling ahead and are not expected to reach TA1 until dusk at the earliest. On arrival they have 3 out and back loops to complete, a 30km run, another 40km of cycling and then a 30 km run with a ropes stage included, which will take place on day 2 of the race.  They don’t have to do all the stages however, and at least one team were considering dropping the first run as it is a 30km night hike for 3 CP’s.

Those who have supporters can’t be helped by them at the end of today’s cycling leg. The supporters can help after all the loop stages from TA1 have been completed.

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