The 2nd race in the 2013 WCAD series took place just outside the town of Wolseley, in the picturesque Breede River Valley.
The fantastic Rustic Venues played host to the race HQ, as well as housing racers on the Friday and Saturday nights. Novice teams were fortunate enough to have Graham Bird from the Merrell Adventure Addicts helping them out with valuable advice on AR preparation and navigation insights.
Just on 50 teams lined up on the Saturday morning to tackle either the fairly demanding 100km long course, or the novice friendly 50km short course.
Both routes consisted of a 6 – 9km trail run/hike to start off with, essentially to separate the teams before heading off on their bikes. Some teams decided that mapwork was not required and took lengthy detours on an otherwise straightforward first leg.
The 2nd leg of the long course race was the make or break leg, with teams having to ascend almost 900m of vertical ascent over a 12km mountain pass, before dropping down the other side of the valley into the remote T1 transition. En route to T1, teams passed through marshlands, unrideable jeep track, desolate and burnt pine plantations, as well as a host of other challenging terrain that makes AR the wonderful sport that it is.
Meanwhile short course teams took a much more direct route, via the Kluitjieskraal Pine Plantation to T1, where ice cold Totally Wild Juice, and much needed food resupplies awaited them.
The 3rd leg of the race was a 6/13km hike on the foothills of the Elandskloof Berge. This leg saw teams kloofing, trekking through burnt proteas, scrambling up and down cliff faces, as well as complete a 30m abseil between 2 waterfalls. Once again, teams returned to T1 for the final 18km bike leg back to the race HQ.
The final bike leg was identical for the long and short course, however a few teams decided that the minimum prescribed distance wasn’t enough for one day, and added on some highly valued gravel road kilometres. Who says WCAD doesn’t offer value for money events?
There was much hurrah and applause from the support crew, wives and girlfriends as teams cycled gleefully under the Cape Storm Arch, and traded their race bibs and clip cards for an ice cold beer and hotdog, before diving into the nearby pool for a much needed cool down.
War stories and route choices were analysed, laughed at, reanalysed and deconstructed late into the night as athletes from across the board relaxed around the fireplace before heading off for some much needed rest.
Team Merrell Adventure Addicts took the overall honours in the long course in a time of 7h37.
Glen Erskine Wines won the short course in a time of 5h31.
Full results, pictures and the race video can be found on the website, www.wcad.co.za
A big thank you to our series sponsors, Cape Storm, Bridgedale, Karrimor, Glider Sunglasses, Totally Wild and Civvio for their continued support of the WCAD Series.
See you in High Noon on the 1 June for WCAD 3! Entries open on 29 April 2013.
Author: Quintin Smith (Race director) | WCAD 2 WOLSELEY, 20 April 2013