MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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Just watched a 6 day race on CH4 thinking to myself, its just middle class folk wanting a 'challenge' for them selves, and that pat on the back 'I'm bloody brilliant' or have I got it wrong? How much are the race fees, must put it out of the reach of most people, and they hardly look like athletes at the peak of performance, just fitter than average office workers who gloat about how good they are when they run 20k's a day in to the office preparing for the next race....
All sorts of adventure races not just 6 day ones etc.
good fun too
http://www.openadventure.com/index.php
And why shouldn't middle-class folk enjoy a challenge? Nobody's making you either do it or watch it (and I assume Ch4 have it on because there's an audience).
As to what the point of it is. The clue's in the title - adventure.
How much are the race fees, must put it out of the reach of most people, and they hardly look like athletes at the peak of performance, just fitter than average office workers who gloat about how good they are when they [s]run[/s] ride [s]2[/s]40k's a day in to the office preparing for the [s]next race[/s] 24....
why is it any less pointless than a days bike ride across a few fields and through the woods?
nice troll tho'
Granted it's not as extreme as wolf raping, but it's still tougher than wobbling round FC scalelextric course in a bit of wood with a big carpark that excites many people on here 🙂
Ah, Mr Chief beat me too it 🙂
What is the point of any racing? Darts? Football (apart from a load of drongoes being able to earn startling amounts of money)? Snooker? Le Tour?
It's a little bit of a challenge, something to do when you're not working? Who cares?
what's the point of anything, in that case?
i'd have thought that the 'point' of adventure racing is simple; people do it because they want to do it. same as anything you or i do really.
What an utterly pointless thread.
Substitute 'adventure race' with 'enduro', '24 hour' or any other not-quite-XC mountainbike race and you can as the same question and come to the same conclusions.
I've done a few of the challengerworld series events( in UK and Europe) with work paying the entry fees, as they're crippling high. About 5 K for a team of 4 for 3 days in europe...
As above, I have a chioce of 3 days in the office or 5 days out of said craphole (with travelling time ) having a laugh and seeing nice places. Durrrrr...
What's the point of the OP?
A lot of the best adventure racers are older anyway, it's about endurance and not speed. Personally I love them, what's not to like about racing for hours on end in shitty weather, knowing that the only respite for your legs is the kayak stage you're approaching.
I'm not good enough to race bikes, but I'm a good enough biker to adventure race when you factor everything else in.
Adventure races are brilliant! There are there for ANYONE who wants a challenge, and for me it's about doing differen sports to give your body an all over fitness rather than say just cycling fitness.
I do the Helly Hansen days ones www.trailplus.com
They are £45 to enter, last one took me 4 1/2 hours we had a brilliant day out, I was exhausted at the end, knowing I've entered one give me motivation to train in the manky weather and a sense of pride when I finish it, i'm not expecting a pat on the back from anyone. You get a small goodie bag with some freebies, T-shirt, gloves etc but overall it's just another fun day out. I often wish I could afford to enter some of the longer ones.
But as above, what's the point in an ultra-marathon or any of these other crazy things that other people (maybe not me) enjoy. Silly thread but can understand a lot of people think it's silly .. normally because they aren't fit enough to compete themselves.
I did the london rat race this year and it was a lot of fun - get to use a few different skills including navigating, ride and run around bits of the city I'd never been to before, and do things you wouldn't normally be allowed to (like abseil off the roof of the Honorable Artillery Company building), all with a couple of mates and several hundred other people.
Was great, will be doing it this year too, and I quite fancy doing one of the non-urban ones. Variety is good.
I did the London Rat Race this year too, saw amazing parts of london never would have seen, along miles of canals through Epping Forest. Abseiling and kayaking all within the city (got sponsored entry which helps as think it was £75 ish otherwise) but loved it none the less.
the point?
fun.
I've done a number of multi day adventure races specifically southern traverse primal quest and xpd a few times. Longest was 6.5 days with 11h sleep covering about 900k.
As to the point ? Well as a middle class it professional this sets me a challenge and I have an enormous feeling of self being when I finish 😉
these things are very hard. I've been racing for about 7 years and they still break me although we do race at the pointy end. Sounds like you want to do one but lack the balls to put yourself and your fragile ego on display. These races strip you to your basic functions and make you work as a team like no other conditions can replicate. Great fun and while expensive way less than the cost of a new bike.
funky I heard of an event you might likke:
Extreme "chip on your shoulder" Internet-forum posting marathons - there's a section for the working class!
I assume you watched the ARWC then, the portugal one ? Interesting race, friends raced it (orionHealth and Nga Rakau) - seemed more of a lottery than normal which is normal for that race director.
We raced the ARWC here in NZ in 2005 and let me tell you that had you been there you would have understood the concept a bit more clearly - it was the adventure to end all adventures with some really quite scary moments (nose diving the kayak into the beach in a surf landing on leg 1 was an inauspicious start!).
The multi-day format is slowly retreating which is sad really, honestly, people are getting soft and want to have a decent kip every night. Dunno whats with that, i think the concept of sleep deprivation and sleep management is part of the whole thing. Navigating tricky terrain while knackered is quite fun.
And your comment about fitness interests me - i think you'll find that most of the people who do these races are significantly fitter, stronger and harder than your average Joe. But then, you've never tried so you wouldn;t know. All i can suggest is you give it a whirl, its avery addicitive sport and all the people i have met through it are decent, honest, fun, driven people who generally like to have a yarn and drink a few beers afterwards. Which is more than i can say for triathletes 😆
Anyway thats 2 posts in a row so you've obviously touched my middle class nerves
How much is a mountain bike? Must put them out of the reach of most people....
Granted it's not as extreme as wolf raping, but it's still tougher than wobbling round FC scalelextric course in a bit of wood with a big carpark that excites many people on here
Nail. Head. Where can I post your award for the 'best response to a thread this year' award? 🙂
oh and btw - I'm [i]totally [/i]intrigued by wold raping....
How much are the race fees, must put it out of the reach of most people, and they hardly look like athletes at the peak of performance, just fitter than average office workers who gloat about how good they are when they run 20k's a day in to the office preparing for the next race....
How's your MTB history? Or weren't you paying proper attention? The 2nd place team in the race you were watching included a certain Mike Kloser - just fitter than the average office worker?
I don't think you have a great understanding of the physical challenges involved in an event such as this - of course they didn't look that speedy after 5 days with very little sleep, but you'll find looks are deceptive and they were actually moving rather faster than you might think. Meanwhile those at the sharp end won't be going that much faster at the start of such an event as they know what lays ahead. Put them in a 24 hour or less race and see them move at frightening speed.
Lots of people "just fitter than the average office worker" go out and compete in various small scale UK races, and find that whilst they might get somewhere near the top, breaking into the top 3 is a totally different story, as the people you're speaking of are in a totally different league.
Edit - realised I forgot to put a comment about the race fees. Yes it's expensive, but actually very good value when you look at what you're getting compared to typical MTB races etc. The thing is it's still far from unaffordable - about the cost of a holiday plenty of normal people manage to find the money for. Then again you might have noticed that the teams at the sharp end tend to be named after various companies, some larger than others - that's because the athletes on the teams have proved themselves over the years and will typically be getting supported in terms of fees and other things (a lot of sponsorship deals don't extend to paying for entry fees, but I'd expect most of the top 10 didn't pay for their own - I managed that on one occasion at the ARWC when I was on a team sponsored by a very large multinational outdoor company).
Yeah Rich(ard Ussher) is an average athlete as well...assume you can knock out an Ironman in 8h4min despite it not being your chosen sport ?
Having raced Nike, Rich et al its quite amazing how fast they actually go - all the time ! We've placed 4th before and been 12h behind the winners over 4.5 days and we were severely shifting and not sleeping.
Ranulph Fiennes used to do lots of adventure racing for training. He's not exactly a [i]fitter than average office worker[/i]. Or middle class. Apart from Ranulph I thought we were all middle class now? Or have we plunged back into the 70s without me noticing?
I'm a middle class wannabe.
Ranulph Fiennes used to do lots of adventure racing for training. He's not exactly a fitter than average office worker.
Interesting comment - he's a bit unfit compared to the team who won the ARWC (and he's raced with at least one of that team).
Yes, he wasn't very good at adventure racing. Says it all really.
Did the microsoft challenge uk last year. As people have pointed out it's better than sitting in an office and we raised a few hundred k for NSPCC. Good fun, I wouldn't had said the average competitor was particularly fit, but the top teams are pretty good.
Really good fun tho.
Quite fancy a go, a mate has done some of the OpenAdventure events and though tough loved it. Entry fees aren't that much when you consider the disciplines involved, triathlon entries are about 50quid a pop!
As for the 'office' worker jibe, just finishing in one piece is an achievement. Winning is a whole different game, just look at the background of teams like Quechua and ATP/Salomon.
genesis - go for it. I did an Open12 a couple of years ago, and it was a slick event with cracking organisation, and a true test. My enduring memory is bonking at 6am on the edge of Ladybower, and sorting myself out with a packet of oatcakes and a dunk in a freezing river.
Highly recommended.
We ran an Open12 at Llandegla last year, best organised outdoor pusuits event I've ever seen and all the competitors were decent people too. My event of choice is triathlon for this year though.
I've been doing the Questars (5 or 6 hour) races for a few years now.
They are well organised events, with a very good atmosphere and camaraderie between competitors. MTBing sections aren't always that technical - I reckon a CX bike would be perfect for the New Forest round but some ace riding during the Brecon Beacon round.
I do the races with a mate and we get our asses kicked by the racing snakes who are putting in 900+ points a race but it's always pleasing to set a new PB points-wise. We won our class last year which is a damn good feeling.
Tried the Ace Races. Lots of mincing around talking about kit. Not that different to mountain bikers or climbers etc.
However I do refer to them as Buff Wearing Buffons , and the whole format seems very contrived 'adventure'. Prefer the idea of KIMM (now OMM) etc to a typical adventure race format. But lots of people seem to enjoy adventure racing. At least I can now take the pee out of my firends having tried several.
Everybody shold do an event that tests them up to, and then just beyond, their maximum at least once in their lives.
We all have a different level of maximum, but the challenge is just the same, if you catch my drift?!
🙂
But its all set out, helicopter back up, food tents on every corner. Its hardly and adventure is it? More of a well supported off road race.
the only point of any hobbies and sport are to divert people from the fact that their lives are completely bereft of any higher purpose. anything that distracts people from that is a good thing, it happens that adventure racing is their personal interest. fair play them.
Granted there are a few corporate challenge type things that do seem to cater more for middle management giving something other than golf a try, but don't think that's what adventure racing is. The rest of your rant was rubbish, and if you think you don't have to be particularly fit to do well at one maybe you should give it a try.
As for the big multi-day races being expensive- what's your point? How are they ever going to be cheap? And does that mean they shouldn't exist or people shouldn't do them?
Adventure racing is pointless - if you are a fat troll living under a bridge you get your kicks in other ways 🙂
I talked at some length to a woman who did a lot of these once. She was definitely very serious, very fit and a total loony. She was telling a tale about a race that involved her carrying a sea kayak across a moor for 5 hours, at night.
I marked it down as a perfectly good way to spend your time, [i]if you're a loony[/i], and resolved never, ever to do one. But I have plenty of respect for the loonies who do. 😀
Some interesting points, but hey, let me stick in my 2 pennerth.
The ARWC in Portugal was an interesting race. More interesting than most, to be honest, in that the format encouraged thinking rather than just being first over the line. Not a slight on Nike, Orion etc, but, like a lot of others, they didn't get their heads round the format until late in the race. They were trying to push for all the CPs because the race director had said 'the best team will get them all' which, it turned out, was wrong. It didn't push that angle too much in the programme, but Helly Hansen won because they [b]out-thought[/b] their opposition, which is as much part of a competitive expedition as strength and speed..
How do I know? Watch the film again, you might spot me in the background of it... no, not that one... that one...just [i]there[/i]. One of the ones with the cameras and the notepads. 😀
Back to the OP's question - what is the point? - I don't know. I DO know that I enjoy Adventure Races a damn sight more than I do XC/Enduro ones. At least in AR you have to think, you have to navigate, and you have something to keep your brain going. You have a team around you, so there's always a bit of banter. You break up the monotony of grinding out the miles on foot or bike with the adrenaline shot of an abseil, a canyoning stage, a swim in a lake. You trek, bike and kayak your way through some amazing landscapes that, otherwise, you'd never get off your arse to go and see because they're too remote. You get the sleepmonsters - sleep-deprived hallucinations of things both entertainingly weird and frighteningly normal (my best was garden gnomes on all the rocks over the Devil's Staircase) - and giggle along with your team when you realise. You fall over the line sodden, bedraggled and absolutely shot, and within 24hrs you're planning the next one. You look at short races as "Ach, it's only 6hrs" and long races as "it's only 5 days", because you've pushed yourself past where you thought it was so many times, you've totally lost sight of where your limit is.
Well, that's how it is for me, anyway. Can't speak for anyone else...
Oh - and to add a comment about fees - goddammit I always forget something - it depends on the race.
The next 'big' races in the UK for this season are the [url= http://www.hebrideanchallenge.com ]Hebridean Challenge[/url] and Open Adventure's [url= http://www.adidas-ar.com/ ]Adidas Terrex AR[/url]
The former is a 750km race, 5 days of running, road and mountain biking, sea kayaking and swimming with set overnight stops, running the full length of the Outer Hebrides (Barra to the Butt of Lewis) and costs £350pp
The latter is a brand new race for this season, 4-day expedition race (continuous, no set stops) and costs £338pp. Judging by Open Adventure's track record (Open 5s, 12 and 24) it should be an awesome race.
That might seem expensive, but for that length of race, both of those are crackingly good value. I'm hoping to race at the Terrex, and have raced the Heb twice previously.
Wow I never expected such a reaction!
I've done a number of mtb 24hr/endurance events, but I wouldn't expect to see me on the TV (not that even claim to be remotely fit!) or even say the Red Bull 24hr...or whatever its called these days on at relatively prime time TV (OK it was shown in the 90's in the middle of the night!)
Yes these folk are fit, but they are not world class athletes, they are just a bunch of (fit) middle class folk having a nice day out, so therefore I can't see why it was on the telly...
I wouldn't expect to see a 24 hour/endurance event on TV either - because it would make awfully boring TV. Are you really suggesting that the programme you saw had no more interest to it than people racing round in circles for 24 hours? You seem to be thinking that because the effort invovled is in some way comparable (it's not really) that it makes these events somehow equal in terms of press interest.
As to not being world class athletes - have you completely ignored everything said in this thread? Exactly what do you think makes somebody world class - the people taking part in this are the best in the world at what they do, what more do you want than that? I should also point out that there are big cash prizes for winning events like this, so it's hardly like there's no incentive for top athletes to devote themselves to this sport, with some being pretty much full time athletes (fairly sure Team Nike for instance do consider themselves professionals).
Still not sure where you get the idea they're not elite from - is that because they seem to be moving rather slower than you expect and doing significant amounts of walking? Did you actually pay attention to the distance they were covering and the height climbed - and you expect them to run it all? Maybe it's the programme compressing everything - you do realise that when they're showing the start and end of stages that there is a 10-12 hour gap between the two?
Not that that has a lot of relevence to being shown on "prime time" TV. It's there because it's an interesting programme which grabs an audience. They've certainly shown plenty of UK races with rather lower quality fields (I've even had a prominent role in some 😉 ) in similar timeslots over a number of years, which presumably means they get the viewing numbers.
But its all set out, helicopter back up, food tents on every corner. Its hardly and adventure is it?
Maybe not - but it's certainly a vast amount more adventurous than most other sports (I've not tried wolf raping). You do also get funny impressions from TV programmes - helicopter backup - maybe, but it's not necessarily easy to get a helicopter to you, and you might have to wait a while (if you extend that line of thinking far enough there's probably pretty much nothing that's an adventure, given you can even get rescued from the arctic ice sheet if things go wrong on your polar trek). Food tents on every corner - maybe, but the corners are rather a long way apart. Meanwhile competitors are off navigating themselves for hours on end through unfamiliar mountains with unfamiliar maps (probably good quality in Portugal - not necessarily so in other places I've been like Morocco, Croatia, or strangely enough Utah!), with no marshalls to point out the way. Also going places and doing things that normal people rarely if ever do.
If by your criteria that's not adventure, then I very much doubt anybody on here ever has an adventure.
Yes these folk are fit, but they are not world class athletes,
Dunc - this was a World Championship event, therefore by definition, these ARE world class athletes!
I can see your point, but I think you're missing something. What you're missing is the endurance element - these guys (and a few of them are good friends of mine) aren't going to win any 100m medals. But that's because they're in a completely different sport. Would you call a top-level Ironman triathlete "not world class" ? Or a top-flight orienteer? Marathon kayaker? Mountain biker? Because that's the background a lot of top Adventure Racers come from. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I've yet to see anyone from a track athletics background do well in AR. Like my old PE teacher would say "fit for [i]what[/i]?" Just because AR doesn't attract the media attention that, say, BMX did in the Olympics, doesn't make it any less of a world class sport.
I'd also defy most people to (just taking a selection of the people in that vid) out-bike Mike Kloser, out-navigate Chris Forne, out-think Tom Gibbs, out-paddle Wayne Oxenham. And that's [i]fresh[/i], after 4 days of minimal sleep, most people aren't even [b]standing[/b], never mind still running. Even the guys at the back, including the team I was reporting for, are capable of pushing themselves for 5 days on about 6hrs sleep. There's not many 'average joes' who are happy to do that regularly.
No beef with people doing this, same as most hobbies, but why on earth did Channel 4 used to show a load of students doing this sort of thing on Sunday morning?
I saw it a couple of times last year anyway. It annoyed me because I know they sometimes had good stuff like PROFESSIONAL freeride or DH events in that timeslot.
I don't know, to be honest. It depends what gets more viewers.
I used to enjoy watching the downhill stuff on C4 of a morning, but the way it was shot always made it look so slow. I know it probably wasn't, but it looked it.
I got on telly for the MS challenge UK. Me on the bike at the front of the pack - I gave the camera man the gun show. As you do.