The Polaris Challenge was first started in the early 90's, since then its gone from strength to strength with overseas events taking place in addition to the 3 in the UK. This is my account of how a new comer to this mountain bike malarkey tackled the Polaris, finished it, and enjoyed it.
Up until this year the only cycling I'd done had been on a racer, nothing serious just fun rides in the summer, the most I'd ever done in one day was about 45 miles. A bit of good fortune early in the year meant that I was now in a position to finally get myself a mountain bike, after much pondering about what to buy I went for a '99 spec Orange P7, and I've been well pleased with it.
The Challenge is a 2 day mountain biking orienteering event, you have 7 hours on the Saturday and 5 on the Sunday to visit as many checkpoints as you can and get to the finish - if you are late you lose points. The summer differs from the Spring and Autumn in that you return to the same camp for the Saturday night during the summer, in the others you don't know where the overnight camp is until you start the event. This means you have to be totally self sufficient for the weekend, that means carrying a tent, sleeping bag, cooking equipment, food - anything you might need (there is a compulsory kit list in case you think you can get away with nothing).
The event starts with registration, where you can pick up your pre- ordered map (Maps are commissioned from OS specially for the event), along with a list of check points. The first job is to mark up your map from the master maps with the out-of bounds areas, the start, the give-out (more on that later). Then you need to mark the 36 checkpoints on the map. At this point you can't plan a route as you don't know how much (if anything) each checkpoint is worth.
It was Friday night as we started this and it was getting very cold, so it was time to go for some hot food, and sit in the pub for the rest of the evening where it was warm. I'm sure the people with the really high scores were studying the map, but after driving most of the day to get there we didn't feel up to doing much at all.
Saturday morning dawned and it had warmed up after the night before, but it was raining the type of rain that doesn't feel like much but soaks you through. Much faffing around was done which made us late, time wasted already.
From the start line we proceeded to the give out - a few hundred yards from the start where we were handed a piece of paper with the checkpoint values, then we tried to mark up the map. The pens failed miserably in the wet, eventually we got some scores down and were able to set about planning a route - bearing in mind where the camp was.
The first day went really well, some excellent riding, some painful pushes and some awesome descents, as well as a ride through a very long ford - some half a mile at least. The last 2 hours were possibly the worst of the day - my colleague was shattered (he'd had a very bad cold earlier in the week), and we had some horrible climbs to go over, but we made it with a few minutes to spare set up camp and had plenty of hot food and drink.
The site for the overnight camp was a very civilised affair, with flushing toilets and running water (we carried purifying tablets as well), facilities unheard of on previous events, so I hear. There was a tent selling beer, but it was the last thing any of us wanted, by 8:00pm most of us were in our bags trying to get some sleep.
Next morning and more fine drizzle, and fog. Still only 5 hours today and for some reason it seems a lot more than 2 hours shorter than on the previous day. The checkpoints values are different on the second day so we went through the same start procedure, on time today, and more great riding around Exmoor. Thanks to an under estimated climb towards the end which took us over an hour we had 6 miles to cover on the road in less than 25 mins, with the wind against us. With the help of some slip-streaming from one another we just made it with a couple of minutes to spare.
The feeling of finishing was fantastic, it had been damn hard work - the last climb of the day was horrible, tired and fed up we just wanted it to be over. Of course that's what makes it all so satisfying. The whole atmosphere of the event is great too, yeah you get those who take it very seriously, who come flying past without a hello, but there are many more who are out there to enjoy it.
I managed it without any serious training; I've ridden to work fairly frequently during the summer, but at only 6 miles and the fact that I live in Suffolk means it isn't the most difficult commute. I also got out most weekends, but again nothing serious just fun riding.
I did the summer Polaris too, that too was great fun, not as hard as the autumn event but still tiring.
If you like mountain biking epics, do a Polaris, you won't regret it.
Last Updated 07-02-2001
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