Discussion: Raidaran

Now that we've fine-tuned our dot watching skills, there's another big expedition AR coming up and we have an all-Attackpointer team to cheer for.

Raidaran in the Spanish Pyrenees will serve as this year's Adventure Race European Championship. Check-in is Tuesday and the race begins Wednesday morning. The race course closes on Saturday night.

The lone Canadian team is WildernessTraverse.com, consisting of Pete Cameron (Phatty), Harper Forbes (Harps), Shannon Miller (Hermes) and Chad Spence (Wokitoki). Phatty and Harps are longtime expedition racers, Hermes did Expedition Africa last year, and Wokitoki has done Untamed New England. They were all on the podium (although not all together) at last year's Wilderness Traverse 24-hr race in Ontario, Canada.

This year, Raidaran has no teams from the U.S., South Africa, New Zealand or Australia so our Attackpoint friends from those countries are invited to become honorary Canadians for a few days and cheer on "our" team.

Sounds like a fast team! Go WildernessTraverse.com!!

It's going to be a he77 of a race as the landscape is extreme and there are a lot of discipline changes. I don't suspect following will be easy as it's a "points" format with each section having an opening and closing time - eg. If you're going to miss the section close, you've got to drop the rest of the CPs to try to make it. Or, if you miss the window, you've got to go by the next section, lose all of those points, and start fresh on the following section. In total, it's around 470k and +14,000m of elevation. Yeah, we're ready to climb!

I'm going to have to go with my second home and support Dutch Adventure for this one as there is no Irish contingency there.

Don't see any information up for the tracker link yet.

Thanks for the beta, Phatty! Still no tracker link. Organizers haven't been using Twitter much but they're posting info on Facebook. Latest updates: The race briefing just happened and there is a heat wave with temperatures of 40C.
<https://www.facebook.com/raidaran>

Here is Team WildernessTraverse.com. :)
<https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/pcb.10806...>

The race begins tomorrow at 9 a.m. in Vielha, Spain. That's 6 hrs ahead of Ontario time. Disciplines will include: "orienteering, mountain biking, ‪trekking‬, ‪kayaking‬, adventure park, canyoning and via ferrata".

Adventure park?! And I'm jealous of the via ferrata. :)

A view of some maps - that's a lot of contour lines!
https://www.facebook.com/raidaventura.orginternaci...

It was 40+ C in Spain today. Possibly 45C over the Pyrenees
Yikes!

Ugh... In better news, it looks like we'll have race tracking! However, read Phatty's comments above. If the leaderboard is not updated regularly, we may not be able to understand much from watching dots alone.
https://tracktherace.com/en/raid-aran-2016/countdo...

Fluceluce (Lucy Spain) is an Attackpointer from the U.K. racing on Team Dutch Adventure. So it's OK if you cheer for them, Sean. ;)

Some info on the race course

Team WildernessTraverse.com working hard on their maps
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/pcb.10810...

I like how they have described the "Enduro Mountain Biking" and "Mountain Biking Marathon" sections differently to the other MTB sections :-)

After 6 hours, Thule Adventure Team leads the race with a decent gap over Black Hills Opavanet, who are just ahead of Snack Gods Raid Team (a new name to me).

Anyone know why each of the teams have roughly half their time recorded as "stopped time"?

@ Bash... I think the guys are working on the maps and Hermes is scrap-booking and writing poems for Bobby.

.....She's gonna punch me next time I see her :-)

I'll hold you for her. ;)

@Super, I was wondering the same thing. Even the lead team has 3 hrs of stopped time out of 7 hrs of racing. I'm guessing there must be a relatively high threshold in kph to determine "stopped" vs. "moving".

Team WildernessTraverse.com is in the midpack on Section 3 of the race, riding up a mountain on a hot day. Has anyone found a place where the race legs are listed with disciplines and distances? Or is the video our only source?

Btw if you haven't found it, you can use the Sections menu to switch to seeing the race maps. Cool!

Looks like today and tomorrow will be hot - fortunately around 30C, not 40C as feared. Then Friday and Saturday will be cooler and teams will get to wear their warm layers at night. This forecast is for the race start town.
<http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/Spain/VielhaeMijara...>

Ah, there is a leaderboard that shows the different disciplines. Looks like it uses geofencing.
<https://tracktherace.com/en/raid-aran-2016/classif...>

Dutch Adventure is in 7th.

The race Facebook page says (in translation):

So far our raiders have faced during the day of today:

S1: Urban MTB + orientation = 2 + 14 km
S2: Trekking + Orientación= Expo: 15 + 2 km
S3: MTB 35 km (where they are now)

Awaits next:

S4: kayak + adventure park + canyoning= 9 km

Oh boy, today is the adventure park!

From the video:

S5: Endurance MTB 55K
S6: Hiking + MTB 47K
S7: MTB Marathon + "Prueba de Rumbos"
S8: Canyoning + Trekking 19K
S9: MTB 56K
S10: Kayaking + Via Ferrata + Trekking 25K
S11: MTB 47K
S12: Kayaking + Orienteering 35K

"Prueba de Rumbos" Google-translates to "Test Directions", which sounds like every part of an adventure race. The video appears to show roller blading but there isn't supposed to be any. Maybe it's supposed to say "Prueba de Rumba", i.e. "Test of Rumba". I know Phatty was practising just in case.

Bit of a boo-boo by Thule in the interpretation of the rulebook. Seems they missed a couple of controls ( and lost/missed out on the points) https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/a.23...

Interesting! (Translation software makes it a little tricky to understand.)

"It seem Thule didn't miss the controls on purpose but misunderstood the road book. 'One of the favorites to win and twice world champion, the Thule, has lost valuable points by a particular interpretation of the roadbook. The Swedish team has understood that he could complete the two sections of urban orientation separately, when the regulation states that the four components of the team must be kept together at all times. The organization has warned and offered them the possibility of repeating the correct length of both the end of the orientation as a way after the four sections of BTT, when they should have re-started the raid early on. Thule has refused and, therefore, all its options to become European champions happen because absolutely all teams fail in a section.'

There's an update. As Phatty would say, "CONTROVERSY!"

"The organization has warned them of this fact and, after a deliberation, has decided to keep them the points because at all times have shown their good faith, the four riders have marked all the beacons and the profit obtained was negligible for the resolution of the raid. In this way, I still aspire to be champions of Europe and to qualify for the next edition of the championship of the world, which will take place in Australia."

About 3 hours till sunset around 9:30 p.m. Sunrise is 6:40 a.m.

WildernessTraverse.com has arrived at TA3, ready for Leg 4 - 9 km of kayaking, adventure park (ropes?) and canyoning. This is the kind of leg that could feel cold and wet when the sun sets in 75 minutes but the weather still looks warm. So far it looks like WT.com has picked up all the CPs and they appear to be in 17th place of 29. (The leaderboard sequence seems wrong.)

When I try to zoom in the map locks on me... every time. Maybe this computer and I will try again at home on another, but thought I'd mention it in case it's a problem that someone else has solved.

It doesn't lock for me but it can be really slow to zoom in or move around. At first I was selecting the option to show all race maps but now I am being more selective and just choosing the maps for the relevant sections.

Thule has been given a 15-minute penalty, which seems more fair than just forgiving their error in a race at this level. The official announcement says they split into two teams of two instead of travelling as a team of four for the urban orienteering. However, organizers say that every team member visited every control. (Thule must have been *really* confused!)

Just catching up. LOVE the map function they have. I'm not having problems zooming in Bash, so I'd give it a go elsewhere.

Any indication of giving Thule a time penalty? Seems that would be a fair compromise rather than simply giving them a pass. That said, language barriers are such an interesting consideration in these big international races.

Singing the Canadian National Anthem down here south of the border...

According to the race Facebook page, "During the Le Tour de France the cyclists had the chance to climb two cols that are also part of Raidaran AREC2016 itinerary. The difference is that we will do it with MTB, no road, with orientation and self-sufficiency mode."

Thanks for "Oh Canada", Broots! We posted at the same time. See my comment on the penalty above.

My rural Internet is just slow. Everything is working and I love the race map function too!

Looks like Black Hill / OpavaNET has passed Thule to take the lead on the 55K Endurance MTB leg. Thule *really* needs to work on their endurance. ;) Adding Thule's 15 minute penalty, Black Hill is even farther ahead.

I got the sense from the signed letter (posted within the last few hours) that Thule served the 15 min penalty at the last TA...but my spanish is terrible and their english is hard to follow.

The English version didn't say anything about when it would be served but according to Sleepmonsters just now, Thule served 7 minutes of the penalty at the last TA while drying their feet and eating. Um, that's not a penalty. That's a TA. But anyway!

Here's the Sleepmonsters article, which fills in a lot of details on the day. Horse flies, oh my!
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

Hermes at the start
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Wokitoki grabbing the orienteering map for the opening leg
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Phatty looking intense
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Team WildernessTraverse.com with a stunning backdrop
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Here's the penalty announcement. You're right, Conman - it's confusing. The sentence about the penalty is not translated directly from the Spansh.
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/pcb.10816...

Team WT.com were having so much fun running uphill that they stayed on the road and ran past CP44. Good save and all is well now. They must be feeling strong!

Looks like Thule improved their endurance mountain biking enough to sail past Black Hill / OpavaNET. Thule is about to arrive at CP18 about 15 minutes ahead of Black Hill (not accounting for whatever happened with their penalty).

I think WT.com is around 20th as they approach the end of Section 4, and I think Dutch Adventure is 11th as they "endurance mountain bike" uphill in Section 5. The leaderboard seems to be reasonably accurate in terms of CPs collected but it is not sorted in order of rank.

Make that 19th for WT.com and they have just started the Endurance Mountain Biking of Section 5. I know they have lots of endurance so this stage will suit them!

Is there going to be a night shift to follow the action? California... Ireland... I'm looking at you!

Would love to know what was written in the rule book that trumps or could be interpreted to change the ARWS rule of team member should be no more that 100m apart at all times?

Just as I thought Thule and Black hills were neck and neck into AT6 (on different routes) Thule shoot north and have to correct by coming back down the course.

Wonder if they thought they were further south?

Sean - check out the race map overlay...both teams were just going back and forth on switchbacks down to the TA.

Thanks Conman, finally figured out how to find the actual race maps, gives a clearer picture of what was happening.

Thule are flying and according to the race are now in the lead again with the posted time including the penalty served. (I asked on FB)

https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/a.6018614...

https://m.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/a.2304...

Do teams simply forget about race instruction or not listen? It was the same in the European Champs last year. RD couldn't have been any clearer about forbidden roads!

Some thinning of the field there! Half (?) short coursed at this stage.

Hopefully some of them are saving themselves as subs for Irish teams at ITERA :/

Looks like Blackhill and Snack Gods have pushed ahead of Thule but maybe trackers are not synced.

Yeah some rate of attrition already!

Where are Czech AR headed off to?!

Sangria and paella??

Though they are about to hit the French border shortly.

Realised their mistake. Just turned back. Reckon they overshot the valley and picked the wrong one.

Clip for anyone catching up later:



Long way back around to get the points on S6

I was wondering who the Snack Gods were. On Facebook, there is a photo of one member who is described as a two-time champion of Raidaran.

I cannot get my computer to show me the things you've posted above! :-(
Thank you are all for keeping me up to speed with most of what's going on.

I'm assuming there is a coverage issue in that coum (?) teams going in, missing 54 & 55

EDIT UPDATE:

From Sleepmonsters - "CP 55 has been cancelled on this section due to security concerns. It will be interesting to see how the teams fared after the difficult, technical section of stage 5."

FB, we'll do our best but that stinks. Although it's a small screen, the tracking works on my iPhone too. The leaderboard could be really useful but at least on my screen, you can't see the team names and their CPs visited at the same time, so there's a lot of scrolling back and forth.

Good job I'm not a gambler! Dutch Adventure have dropped out. :(

Team WildernessTraverse.com appears to have made the cut-off to stay on the full course. The leaderboard shows them in 13th place at TA5, where teams begin Section 6, which is 47K of hiking and mountain biking.

What I don't understand is that the top 5 teams on the Short Course, including Team Dutch Adventure in 4th [until Sean's comment just now], are not shown as missing any CPs but they all arrived at TA5 at least 2 hours before WT. Fingers crossed there is some info we're not seeing.

Some teams who have missed the cut-off were moving really quickly! Euro races have such a different pace from wilderness races.

That's a shame about Dutch Adventure. Any reason given?

Hmm, looking at WT.com's track, it looks like they arrived at TA5 (which is also TA6 after a loop leg for Section 6) around 14:30 local time. This could just be the tracker being wonky but it looks like they headed out onto Section 6 after an hour in TA, then returned to the TA after riding a little more than 1 km. Bike mechanical? I saw in another place that Team Thule Adventure had to borrow a bike from a local after a major problem with one of theirs. WT.com is still at TA5/6 about 1.5 hrs after they are shown returning to the TA. If this is just GPS wonkiness, then they are having a sleep before tackling the next section.

Bash - apparently Wout is very ill and that's about all I can see.

The latest Sleepmonsters article paints a vivid picture of the first night of the race. Wow. Lots of info in here - much better than mere dot watching!
<http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...>

FB, I get the same issue with my work computer...so have to follow along on my phone (picture me starring intently at a tiny map screen 6 inches from my eyes scrolling along)...what I don't like is that there is no "preferred route" pre-marked on the map.

Agreed, Escondido. With so many optional CPs, I guess they decided not to bother but it involves a lot of scrolling and zooming, even on a larger screen.

Sleepmonsters says that TA5 closed at 15:00, which was 3 hours ago. I see that the "Short Course" teams who arrived at TA5 before WT.com made a choice to skip Section 6 even though they'd made the cut-off. They are now moving through Section 7, the MTB Marathon with the Rumba Contest.

It looks like WT.com decided to go for Section 6 to stay on the full course but maybe they've changed their plan. It appears they are not at TA5 but rather in another place in town where Dutch Adventure's dot also appears. Maybe they're having a big dinner (or a sleep) before heading out on Section 7. CP55 on Section 6 has been cancelled for safety reasons, which means that Section 6 is only worth 85 pts now. Compared with the rest of the course, that's not a lot, yet it took Thule 9 hrs to complete the section. It's definitely a section aimed at teams wanting to clear the course and challenge for the overall win, not teams aiming to maximize their points and improve their ranking.

Go WT!!

WT's tracker just appeared in Section 7 enroute to CP26, not far behind Black Hill/ OpavaNET. They're about 1 hour out from TA6. So they've decided to skip Section 6, as a number of teams have, and they're now on the Short Course. When they're done, they can tell us whether those dots at the start of Section 6 were real!

At the front of the race, Thule is currently at CP27 about 30 minutes ahead of CP26. Not sure where their 15-minute penalty stands but it has probably all been served by now.

Sleepmonsters got a few pics of WildernessTraverse.com at TA5. Looking good!
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Bash I asked Raidaran on FB about that after one of their updates earlier. They said penalty was included in overall time at last classification.

Though I linked that above. Am on mobile now so no more fancy screen grabs from me :)

I saw that (and thanks for asking them!) but the organizers didn't specify whether the penalty had been fully served or whether they had just added a few minutes to Thule's time when they published that leaderboard. Since I'm just looking at dots in real time, it's possible (but not too likely) that I still need to account for some penalty minutes. Given that they were allowed to do regular TA activities during the 7 minutes of penalty we know they served, it would not have been too painful to serve the rest!

Seems to be a strange way to serve a penalty too.

15 min penalty served while in transition doing stuff. Not exactly a stop & go or any lost of time or progress.

Must follow up. (Likely academic )

There's no perfect way to serve penalties but assuming there is no risk of hypothermia or other major discomfort, it seems fairest to stop teams as soon as possible after their offence at a time when they don't have access to their gear bins, e.g. they do all their TA stuff and hand in their bin, then they sit in a designated location doing nothing (although of course, they probably nap and nothing can be done about that). Really, it's best if everyone just reads the instructions so that penalties aren't needed!

For some reason, it looks like the leaderboard is now only updating with CPs visited by full course teams so it will be even harder than expected to figure out what's going on - unless someone fixes the bug. WildernessTraverse.com has visited CP26 and CP27 and is still the next team behind Black Hill / OpavaNET on the marathon bike ride (although they are in different categories now).

Teams have been spending about half an hour at the Refuge at CP26, which is labelled "PE Orienteering" on the map. Maybe that is the mysterious Prueba de Rumbo? WT.com got there right around dark. Looks like they're moving well.

Day 1 video including a glimpse of the Adventure Park!
https://www.facebook.com/raidaventura.orginternaci...

From Facebook: "Tonight our raiders will be completing the 115km mountain bike route with a height of 1740m positive and 1150m negative. Closing of the section [S7] will be tomorrow at 8am."

There's no perfect answer for when it's best to serve penalties because there are so many extenuating circumstances and all races are different.

Ideally if you could make a team serve it immediately it would probably be the fairest way in most cases. That is rarely if ever the case. So (IMHO) if you are looking for a 'universally applicable rule' I would suggest the following.

To be served prior to the next 'dark zone' before starting out on it.... so if you have to be on the water by 15:00 and you clear the TA and are ready to go at 14:35 and have a half hour penalty.. you miss the dark zone. (prevent teams strategically gapping other teams through indiscretions) If the team shows up during the dark zone then the penalty would apply as soon as it's lifted.

If there are no dark zones (left) then the penalty would apply at the finish line. This eliminates the opportunity to use the penalty as rest/recovery time which ultimately diminishes the impact of the penalty.

I'm thinking more of the pointy end here...

PE Orienteering is merely a short way of saying the CP is not at the mapped location. Quoting the Rulebook: CONTROL CP26 TO BE MARKED FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS THAT YOU WILL FIND ON THE DOOR OF THE CONSTRUCTION. IT IS AZIMUTH ORIENTEERING.

I take that to mean team find instructions on the building that provide a bearing to the actual punch, which you must find to collect the points.

Thanks! That does indeed sound like the advertised Prueba de Rumbo (Test of Direction).

Where did you find the Rulebook? It sounds useful!

The opportunity to use penalties to get rest along the course is a good argument for postponing them until a time when that will not be the case. Also, I had to serve a 2-hr penalty on the course once around sunset when we were wet and weren't carrying a lot of extra layers; it was cold!

As FB has heard many times, the argument against serving the penalty at the finish line is that the presence of the team in the wrong place on the course could affect the race, e.g. they could arrive at the ropes ahead of another team and cause a delay that shouldn't have happened. Also, other teams may make different decisions if they know the position of the penalized team but are not aware of the penalty.

Last year at Wilderness Traverse, we had a top team with a 1-hour penalty and we decided to inform the other top teams at the first available opportunity. In doing so, we hoped that having the penalty served at the finish line didn't affect the outcome of the race.

But it's way better if teams just follow the instructions! :)

While we're on the topic...

"A French team withdraws in protest to a heavy penalty, a Dutch team lends a bike to a Swedish team and the adventures continue on Day 2 of RaidAran.
Anne-Marie Dunhill reports from Sleepmonsters:"
<http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...>

Lots of news about WildernessTraverse.com in this article! :) Leanimal and Mrs. Harps will like this one.

"Team 30, Wilderness Traverse.com from Canada was the last one to make it out of CP5 before it closed at 15:00. Pete Cameron was asking questions to Anna who was in charge of the checkpoint and his lack of sleep was very evident. He started out by asking her what time the CP closed “tomorrow at 15:00” and Anna looked up at him, very confused and said, “but this CP closes today at 15:00, today we’re the 21st!” Pete couldn’t quite believe her and had to look at his watch for confirmation.

Once the information had sunk in, several seconds later, he realized that the team only had 10 minutes to make it out of the transition and they had to quickly make the decision whether or not they would do the high mountain trekking section. All were eager to do it; an impressive 10 minute rapid transition ensued. They arrived to punch out at 15:00, just as Anna was removing the electronic timing device and a collective exclamation of “What?” was bellowed when she announced that it was closed and that they’d missed it. Several bystanders who’d been tensely waiting to see the outcome commented that it was still 15:00 and that they hadn’t actually missed it; I was one of them.

Anna conceded after confirming the time with the tracking system and the team barreled out of the transition area, to collapse in a heap and re-group a few meters away on a side street. Harper Forbes, who was beet red, said, “It doesn’t seem like any ones sunscreen is working today and I have to get a hat. I left mine back there and there’s no way we’re going back.” An elderly woman who only spoke Catalan opened up her shop for him and he was able to purchase a smart green cap for €2.80, without a word of Spanish. The team said that they planned to sleep in a refuge early on the section."

Rulebook: https://www.dropbox.com/s/09cl5ih4eqocy09/Raidbook...

Route choice variance in the top two teams after CP29. It will be very intriguing to see how the splits stack up. The Northerly route loses a lot less elevation before ascending to the peak for CP30, appears to have a solid handrail for the last 2/3 of the segment, and involves fewer minor intersections and requisite map checking. Thule had a small lead on arrival at CP29. Wonder if that'll change at CP30?

Interesting! Thanks for the Rulebook.

As expected, the lead has changed due to that route decision by Thule. Now for the HUGE steep downhill...straight down, it appears.

And...another variant route decision puts the Swedes back in the lead heading to CP30. Fun race to watch out there at the pointy end!

Nice job on the fast TA ,Team WT.com!

The trackers have been unreliable but it looks like Thule remains in the lead as they approach CP33 on the marathon mountain bike ride. Black Hill / OpavaNET remains in 2nd and WildernessTraverse.com continues to ride well about 1.5 hrs behind them. Looks like WT.com is about 18th overall as the sun rises on Day 3.

+1 nice job on the rapid TA @WildernessTraverse !

An hour ago from race Facebook. I love the translation:

"The Team Snack Gods raid team has decided to rest for a while before the start of the section 8, consisting of ravine and trekking, between the figuereta and the Pobla de Segur. The Catalan team is third, and so far he has completed all the evidence. However, according to Albert Vilana, you have to calculate the possibilities of finally being able to drive the whole itinerary to the full. Double Champion of this competition, villain asserts that the tour is even harder than in the first two editions, and good fault it has the high mountain trekking in the pica d ' Estats-in the photo, from Jordi Santacana Fotografia . Before, in a stretch of mountain bike from the first day, they suffered the rupture of the wheel of a bicycle, but you could solve thanks to the mechanical skills of one of the components of the team, Alberto Taboada Pintor. With the arrival to the town, the contribution of Marta Riba can be decisive, since it is their territory."

Two hours ago from Raidaran Facebook:

"Dropouts confirmed at this stage of the raidaran lleida pirineus: raidermanía elx outlet of rest, Dutch Adventure (NLD), team vaucluse aventures evasions (FRA), rescue team of high mountains and tarraco club muntanyenc (AVL). This last team-in the photo, from Jordi Santacana Fotografia-has had to leave the test because of the dehydration of his female component when I was a quarter of the classification and had in view the third, the snack Gods raid team . All these teams except the French Representative are still completing the route, although out of competition, with less of the four members in the regulations."

Thule sleeping in a bike box after Section 7. Doesn't look bad!
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/a.6018614...

"During the day, from 10 am ; Section 8 begins ‪#‎canyonin‬ more ‪#‎treking‬ a distance of 4 + 15 km and vertical drop of 1050+ and 1070 - about"

Race leaders Thule and Black Hill / OpavaNET are on Section 9 now, a 56K mountain bike leg. Black Hill has moved up a bit; they're about 45 minutes behind Thule.

Team WildernessTraverse.com finished the marathon mountain biking of Section 7 at 10:41 a.m. and set out on Section 8 about 3 hours later. It doesn't look like they napped much on Section 7, if at all, but they probably got a good rest at TA5/6. They continue to move well. Their track is 1.5 hrs out of date but it looks like they're in the canyon now.

Thanks for updates Bash! Wish we could get more on WT. I'm sure they're loving it! I've had worse luck today with website... only leaderboard works for me :-(

Maybe Sleepmonsters will interview WT again today! I'm sure Phatty would like the world to hear more about the perils of sleep deprivation. ;)

In leaderboard news, someone has fixed the software so that team names stay visible when we scroll right to see info from later race sections. Yay. WT is currently ranked 17th.

I hope the don't suffer the rupture of the wheel of a bicycle. That would be bad in a way that was neither good nor positive.

True, but you could solve thanks to the mechanical skills of one of the components of the team.

Advance notice: I'm leaving in a few hours for an adventure race of my own and am not sure what Internet access I'll have on my phone over the weekend. I know some WT spouses, family members and friends are following AP closely to get news. Day shift and night shift, we need some more dot watchers! Thanks.

Here's all the raw material.

Useful Facebook pages:

Raidaran
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/

Sleepmonsters
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/?fref=ts

Raidaventura.org Internacional https://www.facebook.com/raidaventura.orginternaci...

Tracking map - use the option to superimpose the race map for the current section
https://tracktherace.com/en/raid-aran-2016/race

Leaderboard
https://tracktherace.com/en/raid-aran-2016/classif...

Lucy Spain (Fluceluce on AP) and Patrick of Dutch Adventure have both lent out their bikes to other teams. Lucy's is being used by Simone of Team Thule.
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/a.23...

Harps and Phatty looking lucid after Section 7, the marathon mountain bike
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Uh oh, Wokitoki's bike broke.
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/ms.c...

Who knew they made calve sleeves big enough for Phatty's calves!?!

... and that looks like leuko tape on Wokitoki's bike.... he's never going to get that $h!t off his bike :-)

I was thinking the same thing. As Mrs. Wokitoki just said, "Very resourceful!" She says it's the 2nd frame he has broken. That boy has too much muscle. ;)

The 56K Section 9 bike stage has 1300 m climb, 1400m descent and finishes at Puente Montañana.

WT hasn't tracked in over an hour but their last position was not far from TA 7/8 7 after Section 8, 19K of trek + canyoning.

EDIT: Looking more closely, TA8 is different from TA7. It looked like they were looping back to the same TA but the trek continues west to TA8 via several CPs.

Thule finished Section 9 just before 7 p.m.

Up next: Section 10 - Kayaking + Via Ferrata + Trekking 25K

Black Hill / OpavaNET is riding about 75 minutes back.

WT.com has just about finished Section 8, the canyoning + trek.

WT.com appears to be in 16th (based on points) but some of the teams with fewer points appear to be farther ahead on the course (which I suppose makes sense), I hope that this doesn't cause them to run out of time and force them to drop more points towards the end (vs those teams who have less distance to cover and less points accumulated thus far)
Bash... I can't believe you've abandoned me! ;-)

We'll raise a glass to WT.com after Rockstar tomorrow!!

Just heading out the door... Great news! Hope we have cell signal so we can cheer everyone on from up north.

"RaidAran update-00:40 The via ferrata section was cancelled. The lead team, Thule, arrived to start the section but did not have their harnesses. As they were searching for a solution, very heavy storms broke and the organization took the decision to cancel the via ferrata for all teams for safety reasons."

Lucky Thule!

(I have cell signal in the car so far - and not driving.)

"Heading into the third night of Raid Aran Thule Adventure still lead, but can't afford to make any mistakes as Black Hill / Opavanet chase them to the finish.

The leaders are currently on stage 10 (kayaking, trekking & via Ferrata), to be followed by a 47km MTB and the final stage is kayak orienteering and individual orienteering where each team member gets their own map - so it will be an interesting finish.

There is also a dark zone for the kayaking, with no teams starting until 06.00 ..."

As near as I can tell with the stupidly tiny tracking map on my phone, WT is about 60% of the way through the Section 9 MTB. Based on the photos, the weather has been stormy across the course.

I've come to the conclusion that desktop is the only way to dot watch in style. Between an iPad and mobile phone here and one or the other or possibly both may be flung in frustration! ;)

What number are WT?

30 - thanks for any updates!

See to be going well. Just ahead of a French team 3-Alpha Dental at moment.

If I have it right they are onto the kayak next where if the dark zone is in force they should make it with a bit of time to rest before the DZ is opened or lifted.

My wee phone map shows them around TA9 now. Hope they get some sleep!

In transition now.

WT is kayaking in the final section and the leaderboard (not always accurate) has them in 15th. Off to race now!

Pretty tight race. Tracking shows Thule overshooting C81 slightly and having to paddle back to it if BH got it they may now be in the lead!

Thule has the win.

Can't seem to make head nor tail of what is left on the tracking map. On iPad and it is brutal.

Thanks for trying! On my iPhone, it's brutal too.

Home now and the race is over. Thule won by only 20 minutes over Black Hill / OpavaNET.

Explanation of how their penalty was served: "They had completed their 15 minutes penalty from the first stage broken down into two parts; 8minutes at the time the organization stopped them to clarify what happened and 7 minutes in the transition from section 4 to 5."

That's from this Sleepmonsters article that talks about the finish of the race for the top two teams.
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

Official results for all teams: Wilderness Traverse moved up to 13th by the end. Looking forward to hearing from some of them here. Hope they had fun! (Other than Wokitoki's broken bike.)
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/pb.598210...

A few more great shots of WT.com
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/ms.c.eJxF...
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/ms.c.eJxF...
https://www.facebook.com/raidaran/photos/ms.c.eJxF...

I see approx. 3 members of that team that would have a problem fitting a pfd under the race jersey! :-)

Even without a PFD, poor Wokitoki can't keep his belly button covered with that jersey.

Hah! Yes, the halter top race jersey should have been forewarning to me that 215lb'ers don't really belong in mountain races like this.

The jerseys were great in my opinion, finally, one that doesn't drown me ;-). Interestingly maybe that is their point about mountain races, the only other race jersey I've got that is tighter was for the APEX race in Switzerland on similar ground! Then again, the best mountain racers I've raced with were 207-212lb so they've got that wrong ;-)

Great race, one I'd like to complete (although I would vote for a little more on foot....), but had a great time and met racers I would normally never see/talk to during the race. Turned into a bit of an adventure holiday but what better way to have some adventures than on an AR course :-) The organiser put some good thought into the water sections, fun paddle to finish!

I have that APEX jersey too. Very form fitting!

Sorry you didn't get to finish the race, Fluceluce, but you played a huge role in Thule's victory. If you ever need an AR favour, some of the best in the world will be there for you!

They offered to rent it and I told them I was getting my AR karma in for when I'm racing fast and need a bike replacement ;-) (quite pleased its come back in one piece though, you never know when racing that hard!)