Well, Merrell Adventure Addicts were 9th at the end-of-bike transition – this was just after midnight on Thursday night (our time). They stayed there a while, having a good sleep – more than the compulsory 4hr stop. It has done well for them because while they lost places on the bike, they’ve regained the places on this 92km monster hike. Photos that have been posted of this hiking route look really beautiful.
Seagate were first off the hike earlier today (Saturday). They were one hour slower than the predicted fastest time of 35hrs (they logged 36hrs). Thule (2nd) took 42hrs!
I’m not sure when we started the hike but we’ve been moving steadily all of today – I’ve checked in here and there. Looks to me like we’ve got about 14km left of it.
When we get to TA7 it is a relatively short 40km mtb (Section 7) to the river. They say it has 1,600m of climb.
Then, they get on to Section 8 – a trekking and 33km guided river rafting section, which – I think, takes around 5hrs (Seagate clocked 4:54 for the stage). This is where there is a dark zone – and this is the issue under discussion.
Seagate have just finished the rafting (a short while ago) and tracking show Thule and Columbia on the river. No other teams yet on the bike.
Adam Rose (Saffa from Durban living in UK) posted this article this morning (or so) on SleepMonsters. It’s got time predictions etc for who will get caught by the dark zone.
Essentially, you’re stuffed if you’re caught by the darkzone and you’ll just be racing the other teams around you who also get caught by the darkzone.
Rafting has to be started by 15h00 (as sunset is around 17:15-17:30 it doesn’t give you much time to complete the river – but maybe as the teams have guides they do the worst part in the light and easier part in the dark?).
Let’s see… It’s 12h10 now. We’ve got about 10km to go on the trek (tracker just updated). Let’s say that’s 2hrs. So we’ll get in around 14h00.
The bike leg is 40km but will take us say 4hrs. That’s 18h00 by the time we get to the river… Lots of time for sleeping and socialising. I don’t know what time the darkzone lifts (I think at 04h30 according to early posts) so we can really take it easy on the rest of the hike, take time in transition, take it easy on the bike and still sleep for the whole night. And then enjoy the river in the morning and kick some bottoms.
At TA8, where we’ll be spending the night, the teams get their last set of maps.
At TA9, the end of the guided river section, teams are on their own for an 89-KILOMETRE river paddle.
I’m quite sure we’re going to make up a lot of ground here. So, that’s what we’ve got to watch online for the rest of the weekend.
Photo from Merrell Adventure Addicts FB page. Dunno who took it.