3rd place in Wulong – Day 1 (updated)

Today was the first long day of the Wulong Mountain Quest. The team had several battles with other teams along the course and several times got ahead when these other teams had bike issues- crashes, punctures and broken chains. Some of the downhills were on concrete roads and these could be very slippery at times. We were happy with our tyre choice and hopefully we can continue the next two days without any major bike issues.

Today’s course

1)  Kayak 60 min (13km) on the Wulong river, a large swift river with lots of boils coming up off the canyon walls making for very hard steering of the kayaks.
2)  Run 40 min straight uphill (4km 700m climb) on some very slippery concrete paths through rice and vegetable patches.
3)  Bike and Run 60 min, only 8km showing how hilly and technical this section was. ”Bike and Run” run means the four person team has only two bikes and team members alternate between biking and running along the course. No dubbing is allowed.
4)  MTB 110 min (34km), lots of up and down, a mixture of concrete roads, jeep roads and singletrack.
5)  Abseil 90m into the Three Bridges Canyon.

We arrived at the final section, a 90m abseil into a beautiful limestone gorge with three natural bridges only a few minutes behind the leaders Toread and breathing heavily down Thule’s necks (Aaron was doing the heaviest breathing today, and is hoping for a better day tomorrow). Unfortunately we had to wait for these teams to be clear of the ropes. This meant that we finished the day five minutes behind Thule and ten minutes behind Toread. Haglöfs Silva also lie third now in the overall standings.

Results (10 first)
1  Team Toread 4:21:51
2  Thule Adventure Team 4:26:45
3  Team Haglöfs Silva 4:31:19
4  Team Kolumb 4:41:06
5  Oso Negro 4:41:27
6  Moxie Gear/Nuun 4:49:37
7  Tineli NZ 4:52:02
8  Team Redbull 4:56:33
9  China University of Geosciences 5:06:07
10  Guizhou Luhu UCC 5:13:04

Tomorrow’s course

1)      Kayak 120min (20km)
2)      Run 80min (10km)
3)      MTB 110min (38km)
4)      Abseil off a bridge then swim 300m to rafts
5)      Rafting 15min (1.5km)