Itera 2014 Part 4: Thursday

Day 4 Schematic

If you missed the previous stages, you can read about them here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.
The overall view of our race is here.

Stage 7: Paddle (Glasbury to Bredwardine via Hay-on-Wye)

It’s like poetry in motion

This was actually a fairly uneventful stage for us. We negotiated the slightly tricky bits with only a minor incident – Paul and I got grounded on some rocks! After he got out and pushed the boat around a bit we were able to set off again, without leaving him behind … In Hay-on-Wye (book town, and just before the border of our English sojourn) we said hello to Andy again and used a very old map to collect control points. We stopped at a promising looking café, dripping wet. Luckily Sam and I had kept our buoyancy aids on for warmth. Paul hadn’t though, and was getting very cold. We don’t seem to pick cafés well, as this one took an age to serve our food, much to our impatience (especially Sam’s).

Then we paddled and paddled until we got to the final optimistic ‘get out’. This one was so unlikely we needed ropes to help haul the boats out.

Jon has a reputation for being good at fixing stuff up. I didn’t realise this also extended to people. He was the only one in the group who had thought to bring lip balm, and by this stage we were all stealing it off him at every opportunity. I am not sure how, but here I seemed to get almost half a stick on my face and was left wondering how I could save a chunk for later 😀

We were all pretty cheerful and the marshals commented on what a good state we were in, which only made us feel even better!

Stage 8: Bike (Bredwardine to Talybont-on-Usk)

We had some spectacular riding round these hills

After persuading the naturally-conservative Paul that we were going for some more extra bike controls we set off up a steep road hill. From day 1 there had been evidence of the ‘arrow club’. Paul and I were definitely in. Jon was definitely out and Sam hovered on the sidelines. The arrow club applies on road climbs of a certain grade … but if I told you how to get in, it would be breaking the rules.

What followed was another of my favourite parts of the race. First there was good fortune. As we finished the road climb towards a mast, we saw the man with the TV camera. And just at that point, a double rainbow appeared! What luck, and a reward for the rain shower! As we rode past he got a few good shots – and if that doesn’t make the opening credits, nothing will.

A little further on Sam had a mechanical issue which I thought would scupper us. Her front brakes made a terrible noise. Now, Jon the fixer was immediately inspecting it, and he found that her brake pads had worn out. Sam was fuming, as she had asked the bike shop to put new ones in while she was away (she had only been back in the country a few days before the race). We rode on with Sam on back brake only and us shouting out when we slowed for bends. To her credit, she did the rest of this stage and all of the final one with only one brake, and you’d hardly have been able to tell the difference.

Paul took advantage of the pause in proceedings to invent a new bike clothing accessory. A T-shirt was folded and stuffed down his shorts to act as an extra cushion for his bruised derrière. Apparently it worked; at least, he was happy!

We rode over a grassy field that turned into some lovely tracks crossing the border just as the sun was low and golden in the sky. As we got to control number 52, the views were breathtaking. I certainly felt a tear in my eye, I was so happy and taken in by it all. It was magical. Paul and Sam felt similarly. We asked Jon, surely you feel something? He replied “well, I suppose it is quite a nice view” !! So, with three of us on a high, we trundled around collecting all the controls that were still in play for this stage. I wondered if some extra up and down on the roads would have been faster, but we were having fun on the bridleways. We came across a box marked ‘cold drinks, donations to mountain rescue’. Some of us tucked in!

Again we finished in the dark, but came into transition buzzing. James (event director) seemed a bit bemused as we raved on about what an amazing stage it had been.

The end seemed almost in sight now. At least, we could comprehend what we had left: a trek and a bike.

We popped the tent back up but limited ourselves to 40 minutes sleep. None of us wanted to wake up after that, but we did and were soon setting out into the cold night air.