HU Mountain Madness '07

[iswoolley]

Earlier in the year at the Horizons Unlimited weekend in Derbyshire I went to a presentation by Austin Vince about an event called the Mountain Madness. Billed as orienteering on bikes in the Pyrenees, and despite the amateur promo video, it sounded like excellent fun, so I signed up that very evening. The idea is that you get a map and a book of checkpoints in advance, and you plan a route that gets you back to hotel by the cutoff time, and takes in as many high value checkpoints as possible. At the end of two days, the team with the highest total wins. Simple.

Read on to find out how it went...

[iswoolley]

I got home from the weekend, and then promptly forgot almost all about it. Until with about three weeks to go I got an email from Grant reminding me that I couldn't compete solo, so would I team up with a guy called Ian. No worries, it turns out Ian is just back from riding from one end of the Americas to the other on his GS1200. Oh, and he's a fan of MemoryMap. So Ian scanned in the map, drew a line splitting the checkpoints in half, and we agreed to plan a day's route each.

I took the western half of the map, which contained lower value checkpoints, but on initial inspection was easier to plan a route for. I traced my proposed route as an overlay in MemoryMap, then emailed the overlay back to Ian. According to the website "Even a skilled team with excellent navigation and riding skills could only be reasonably expected to get to about 25 plaques over the weekend", so I omitted a couple of checkpoints that were a bit tricky to get to. All in it was a 115 mile route, with about 10 miles of tarmac at the end.

I didn't hear back from Ian until a few days before the off. As it happened he'd left planning the eastern route until the day before leaving. He'd also printed off smaller sections of the map, with our routes overlaid. His route was slightly longer, but delivering a higher points score.

[iswoolley]

I left Telford at 7pm, and 200 miles of motorway later arrived in Poole. Ian arrived just as I was checking into the port. I discovered that one of the bolts holding my crash bars on had sheared off. We got onto the ferry, had some food then headed for the reclining seats. Crap idea. Next time I'll go for the cabin, as at least I'd get some sleep. We arrived in Cherbourg at 7am local time, and headed south.

It's autoroute almost all the way (Cherbourg, Rennes, Nantes, Niort, Bordeaux, Toulouse). 700 miles and about €30 in tolls later we left France and headed into the Spanish mountains. The final approach to Llavorsi is over a 2000 metre pass, with a liberal dose of hairpins thrown in for your motorcycling pleasure.

The Hotel Riberies in Llavorsi is a 4 star gaff in an excellent location. The deal was €190 for three nights, all meals included, even a packed lunch. Ian and I were the last to turn up, so there was a collection of bikes already waiting in the car park, included R1200GS, R1150GS, F650GS, XT600, XT660, CCM605, XR400, TTR250, KTM LC4, 950ADV, KLE500, DR350... and one Africa Twin. Most people had ridden down over a couple of days, or made it part of a bigger trip. Only one team had hired a van.

The 20 competitors gathered for a short briefing; be safe, don't piss off the locals, don't ride off-piste, all good common sense. Apparently in the pilot event, the winning team were lying 9th at the end of day 1, and then managed to take in 35 of the possible 36 checkpoints to win on day 2. Some of the easier checkpoints had been moved as result of the running the pilot. Austin also recommended that we all take in the western checkpoints, so we could experience the best trails. Ian and I decided to do our western route first, on the basis of Austin's recommendation, and also that our low score might lull the other competitors into writing our chances off at the half way point!

[Sohoeasy]

I like this already ! ..........Next installment please.

[HUDDERS]

Sounds good so far next

[Lord Vader]

Oih you cant just stop like that
this is worse than x-mas,i want to know what happend

[iswoolley]

Up nice and early to give the bikes a quick check over, then off to find Austin to check out for the day. No team was allowed to leave before 8.30am, and all teams had to be back before 8pm. It was a cloudless day, but being surrounded by mountains meant that it was very much on the chilly side. Ian and I headed north to our first checkpoint of the day, just off the main road and up a series of gravel hairpins into the pine forest.

Being the first checkpoint we rode straight past it of course. The checks are described in the book, with a photo of the general location. But what we're actually looking for is a metal plaque about 3" long with a number stamped into it. The first one was attached the roof of a small stone shack set back from the road. From there we continued to ascend, leaving the tree line behind until we hit the ridgeline at 1800m and glorious sunshine.



Wild horses roam these high pastures freely, wearing huge bells like Alpine cattle. The rest of the morning was spent at altitude, the trails sometimes crossing under dormant ski lifts. In places the trails open up and 4th gear is comfortable, whilst in others the 1st gear hairpins seem never ending. One thing quickly becomes obvious, the dust is a real problem. Ian experiments riding a metre or so behind me to avoid the rising dust, and also dropping well back to let it disperse. Neither option is comfortable.



By lunchtime we've covered 50 miles, all offroad. So we drop down to the village of Gerri de la Sal for some lunch. We're making good time, and so far I haven't cocked up the navigating. The afternoon's checkpoints are along more nadgery trails, but I'm feeling confident we'll be back at the hotel in time.



Our first head scratching moment of the day comes as we head towards a checkpoint on a trig point at 1900m. The trail just peters out into a grassy field, and whilst we can see the trig point ahead, a fence bars the way. We spend half an hour scouting around the edge of the field, before eventually backtracking far enough to spot the fork we'd missed.



With only one scheduled checkpoint left to do, Ian suggests that we take in a nearby check that I'd omitted as not being on the way anywhere. So we headed out from the town of Sort up some majestic tarmac hairpins to add another check to the day's tally. On the way back to Sort we stopped for fuel and ice creams.

Ian's been thinking all afternoon about stealing a few extra points, so he suggests that we do three of his eastern checkpoints that run up a trail to the Andoran border. Back at the hotel just after 6pm we decide to go for it, and with 40 miles to do in 2 hours we 'make prgress' along the road section. With just the Andoran border checkpoint left to do, we finally meet up with some other competitors; Team BJ. They're also hoping to make the border and be back at the hotel by 8pm. So the four of us raced up the trail together, our combined 1950cc leaving their 1310cc literally in our dust.

With just 45 minutes left to get back, Ian and I are nailing it back down the track when Ian dropped into a dust obscured rut and the 1200GS went down. After a bit of scouting around to find the contents of his topbox, we make it back to the hotel at 7.50pm. Whilst we're supping a celebrational beer, Ian is counting the cost of his tumble. A spotlight is no more, the back brake lever is bent, and the token BMW bashplate has been clean ripped off at the rubber mounts. Team BJ rock up with only moments to spare before the 8pm deadline, but bring news that they know where Ian's bashplate is!

As the day ends back in the bar, Austin takes us through the standings. Of the seven teams, one is definately treating the event as a trail riding weekend and have racked up less than 100 points. Then there are three teams in the 200-300 point bracket. Ian and I managed to score over 500 points (significantly more than the 400 I originally planned to do), but Team BJ are out in front with over 600 points from a two-day maximum of 1069. We're still in the hunt, but Team BJ are going to be tough to beat.

[iswoolley]

Apologies... I'm away for a couple of weeks now... but I will finish the writeup when I return.

[FatFergie]

... but I will finish the writeup when I return.

Oh you big tease!

[boboneleg]

Nice one Iain, it's amazing how the 'competitive' element takes hold of you