Raid World Championships 2006

The Raid was the start of the homeward journey. Exciting in that we hadn’t seen NZ for almost 4 months but also sad to leave the abundance of yummy cakes that Elina’s Mum constantly baked.

After having every explosive paste that we were carrying removed at Frankfurt it was obvious that no one could possibly blow our plane up which was nice but it also created a rather potent comination of bad breath and BO as no one had any deodorant or toothpaste any longer.

Was a total surprise that none of our bags made it to Montreal, but the most worrying part was the 400 odd bags waiting to be redirected at the Air Canada baggage service area.

The Raid is renown for having totally redundant gear and rules about your gear, Luckily our jackets were heavy enough and our candle was big enough but they were satisfied until we had cleaned out the local chemist of many drugs which we had totally no idea of there use.

One nice thing was we received our maps really early and the organisation has pretty comprehensive break downs of the race, stage lengths, elevations loses and gains on each leg plus fastest predicted times. One thing was clear, at a shade under 1000 km it was going to be long and with almost 650km of biking the backside was going to be rather tender by the finish.

The Raid format of recent years is unique in that there is a mandatory amount of sleep that you have to take. This year we had a 27 hour sleep credit to use over the course of the race, in minimum blocks of 4 hours it usually means very little sleep monster – if any plus the pace of the race stays a little bit higher.

Driving to the start we were hit by some of the most torrential rain I have ever seen and it looked like the race was going to be miserable, the autumn was definitely arriving in Quebec and the prospect of a cold race wasn’t that appealing after 3 ½ months of summer.

Race start at 4am was cold but dry as we set out on the first of our many rides, an easy start which would soon turn into the frantic surge for the first transition. Unfortunately for us our progress was halted by an early puncture and heading into a rather daunting 80 km flat water paddle in inflatable canoes we found our selves already a few minutes down. The familiar red canoes that the Raid has been using for years were definitely showing there age this time round with may patches and it was evident as even early we saw teams trying to pump there boats up while floating down the river. The canoes also seem to have a rather finite top speed so no team has such a big advantage and the racing feels like your racing in slow motion on a TV program.

Canoeing provided a more leisurely pursuit, which made for a rather enjoyable first day, floating down the river in a group including Go-Lite, Ertips and Saab Salomon while up ahead Helly Hansen and Les Arc led the way.

After a relatively short feeling 10 hours on the river, it was off again on the bikes. We had a few interesting choices with the navigation, the road book specifying some seemly more obscure routes. Knowing the tendency for race organisers to dish out penalties we took these and so did the majority of the teams, although we later found out the non mandatory suggestions were just that, creating even more dilemmas when deciding the route – the specified route or the one that looks better on the map – who knows?

Another interesting quirk in the Raid was non timed sections where you had a specified time you had to complete a ride in. These were always ridiculously generous, 1 hour to bike 15 km, on the road or similar and if you took less time, the difference was added to your sleep. This it seems was just a cunning way for the organisation to get around some permits or other problems, as we weren’t considered to be racing, just linking the race course together. The one tactical benefit to these was if you took longer than the specified time the difference came off you sleep without it having to be in a 4-hour block. Hence a quick nap in the sun was often the call towards the end of these sections.

Off the bikes and into the kayaks, only 10 minutes down and having the advantage of the Ruahine doubles, comparitive rock ships in comparison to most of the field wwe made our way through the field to