Compass Award Part II

After the orienteering course it was a short ride to Story which was alos serving as TA1. Short but still a good opportunity to catch a nice picture of my standard “oh my god, bruce is turning up the pace” face. This is frequently my expression on open sections of road riding. After a brief transition we ran to the canoe put in, essentially repeating the opening run of the morning to cp1.

We launched the canoes and paddled off. Or, well, I slipped down a greasy mud/clay embankment. Waded around in thigh deep water for a bit. And then launched the canoe and paddled off. Yep, nothing like experience to help you do things right. Anybody find my dignity along the river? If you could return that to me via the mail I'd appreciate it. :)

The canoe leg was supposed to head west-southwest to a confluence with another stream then we were to turn to the east-southeast and head up the other stream to a bridge where CP7 had been located on the first bike. We had thought about just portaging due south (at 9.3 miles on road it was debatable) but we hadn’t brought good wheel sets along for the plane ride. (There’s only so much you want to drag through an airport). Bruce had a four wheeled dolly that might have worked if the southbound roads were paved but they weren’t. We had ridden the one route on the way from CP7 to the start of the orienteering course. So, we elected to just do the paddle as mapped.

In the daylight the normal channel of the river was relatively easy to pick out by looking at the open tree canopy. Fun moments came when approaching strainers in the normal channel or bends in the river. Often you could navigate around or cut corners using the flooded woods. There was a bridge that Brent and I managed to limbo under while Bruce and Tracey portaged around. Later we reached a bridge across the river that was nearly submerged. Here’s a nice picture. The road is behind the paddler's left shoulder and the river is behind his right shoulder.



Overall, it was fun stuff and with the sun shining brightly it was a pleasant day on the water. We also realized it would be a whole lot of “not fun” for folks later on. Eventually we caught up to Alpine Shop and CP0. We were closing in on the sharp turn to go back upstream when we did. Off in the distance we saw CP0 turn hard left and. We used that signal to land our boats and portage up over a thin ridge that separated the two rivers. That closed the remainder of that gap. From there we paddled fairly well and managed to put in the third best canoe split of the day (8 minutes off EMS and 2 minutes behind the three-man war canoe of Citgo Gray Goat).

We ran uphill to the next TA and made our way out onto a trekking loop. EMS had a good lead but we were still tightly clustered with CP0 and Alpine Shop in the Coed 4. We also kept thinking that Base Camp had to be lurking out there somewhere. We set out on the loop which could be done in any order (but it was only a clockwise or counterclockwise choice). Alpine Shop headed out in counterclockwise, we left next and I elected to run us clockwise. If anything was tricky I'd rather take a chance that we'd nail it and they wouldn't. But it was all fairly straightforward. There was again the opportunity to cut some corners and straightline a bit but for the most part it was easy stuff. Trails and roads until the last little stretch where ponds or stream junctions and such would serve as CP locations. We managed to snag all but one point before dark finally set in. The push to do so left my stomach a little funky and on what should have been a relatively easy climb to jog out I was reduced to walking and trying to choke down some food. I had to spit a couple things out but by the time we reached the final stretch I was eating again and able to get a good stride together. We finished that loop in 4:26 (a little slower than my 4 hour estimate but not terrible). EMS and Alpine Shop really clobbered it though going through in 3:15 and 3:38 respectively.

CP0 was just rolling out of the TA on their bikes as we came in so we rapidly transitioned and sped out into the night to challenge for third. Well, we would have done that but then we realized Tracey's blinking red light was way low on battery power and needed a change. It took some time and some cursing and eventually we realized that a hammer was the only way we'd pry the thing open, so we left with her light on the "extremely dim" setting, feeling OK about it as most of the night we'd be on single track. As we approached the first CP a team came up behind us. (Surprise! It was CP0). We pushed to the next CP but overshot the off trail location ever so slightly. We had reached a small climb a hundred meters or so past the point so I knew where we were and where to jump into the woods. But I tried to figure out if we could get it without giving the point to CP0 who had also passed it by. I relented after a minute or so and just went to grab it. CP0 followed in short order and then we rode similar pace for the next few miles grabbing another CP simutaneously and riding on.

Early on the ride I had heard a nice loud "POP!" from my drivetrain but thought maybe a rock or stick had made the racket. Moments after the next CP the truth was revealed. The chain had snapped. A couple weeks back I wrote a piece about "things that will help at a sprint race" and in it I mentioned knowing how to use your tools. Knowing how to diagnose a problem would turn out to be a good thing too. We broke out the chaintool and removed the twisted outer link with relative ease. But when we inserted a new pin the exercise fell apart. It went most of the way through but then it just wouldn't budge any further. We backed the replacement link out. Pushed it back in and jammed again. For good measure we repeated this process a couple times, tried backing one more link down the chain etc... We wasted next to forever on this exercise and eventually crammed a pin back through.

By now we had given CP0 a good chunk of time to ride away but there was still plenty of time. We picked up the nearby point but on the way to the next point the chain blew apart again. Our crm job really hadn't fixed the problem so we backed up a link on both sides of the chain and finally made a good connection. When we finally got moving again we saw two riders coming at us in the dark. It was half of CP0 now backtracking towards TA3. They had had a wheel fail completely and were forced to drop out so the team had split up to get someone to come pick them up. Bum deal because 3rd would have been much more fun to settle up by racing as opposed to mucking around with a bunch of malfunctioning equipment.

OK. I'm off to Efix so I'll cut it off here. We rode the rest of the night w/o incident and bagged 3rd in Premier and some nice CP tracker points. CITGO Gray Goat (3 person male) had also managed to hold us off while we were fixing the chain over and over despite having to scooter and tow one of their bikes through a good chunk at the end.

"But what the hell is the Compass Award", you ask????

OK. At the pre-race meeting PA had announced some special prizes for teams with worst times on certain sections. With the stipulation that they finish the whole course. Unfortunately the flooded confusion of the paddle section had created an obstacle too difficult for a large chunk of the field. At the awards ceremony we were granted the award for the slowest time on the orienteering course and with that received a certificate for a free compass for each of us. :)

Technically Base Camp had been the slowest on the o course but had left on their drive home prior to awards. We were next in line and happy to take podium spot and oddly enough a "worst".