The course is 864km long as the crow flies, the race can last over 12 days and yet the outcome of the Red Bull X-Alps – the alpine hiking and paragliding adventure race – can be decided in minutes. Decisions about where to find the right thermals or reaching a summit take off quicker than a rival can result in covering 200km quickly by air, or slowly by foot.
Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, a MATES man had the wonderfully crazy idea to start adventure racing. He found 3 other willing MATES and chose Expedition Africa – the longest, toughest one of the lot as their virgin trip. Yes, children, he was a little bit crazy… This is their story in their own words.
Teams Bikesnwines.com and JETT have made lovely videos of their race at Expedition Africa. You can view them here.
Brave the cold with Lisa’s WINTER METROGAINE – an urban point-score navigation event. Enter as an individual or pair. You will receive a full-colour A3 street map on which checkpoints are marked. A cluesheet will guide you to the control locations.
AR’s NAVIGATION ESSENTIALS is a navigation skills workshop starting from the basics i.e. what exactly are lines of longitude, latitude and how do degrees, minutes and seconds fit in; to direction of travel and advanced practical examples taking into account “real life” situations.
Team Dewpoint were super excited for Expedition Africa this year, Kelly and I were doing our second 500km expedition AR after completing Bull in 2008 and it would be the first 500km for Kev and Mark. Kelly (who is South African but plies her trade in Aus) flew out for the race and spent a couple of days with us in Joburg getting all her gear together.
Leaving Johannesburg late on Friday afternoon, we practiced sleep deprivation by driving through the night, arriving at Onrus caravan park around 11:00 on Saturday morning.
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