Patagonian Expedition Race 2012: Day One of The Patagonian Expedition Race: The Race Is On!!!

February 14, 2012

The racers began at 2:30 in the morning, with the wind at their backs and the Southern Cross in the sky. All the teams set out an incredibly fast pace heading south along la Costanera. The paved road allowed the teams to roll with ease toward Checkpoint 1 and they arrived in clustered groups.

At 4:56 Adidas Terrex pulled in with Gear Junkie/Yoga Slackers, the Danish team of CUVA, Kauri, and Cyanosis in tow.

Nick Gracie of Adidas Terrex was moving with extreme efficiency at the transition saying that the mountain bike section felt like a warm up. The team was on the water in just over thirty minutes. The only other team to make such a proficient transition was a determined Yoga Slackers.

CUVA greeted the kayak section, pleased that the wind at the edge of the world is within tolerable limits today. A Magellan Strait crossing via kayak can quickly be made impossible by the winds, which tend to be calm in the morning and pick up as the day goes on. For this reason, it will be essential for the teams to maintain an impressive pace until they have safely crossed the strait.

The second cluster of bikes arrives just fifteen minutes behind the first group, led by French Vaucluse and including team Red Fox Goretex, East Wind, Ulkoilun Maailma, and Brazil's Selva Kailash. Christi Masi of the Ulkoilun passed through transition with a smile and a realistic statement. "So far, so good," she said as the team worked quickly in the morning light to get their kayaks in the water.

Team East Wind's Kaori Waki said they felt ready for some paddling and shared the same sentiment as several other teams: The trekking in this race will be the most challenging, particularly when crossing The Darwin Range.

A third cluster of bikes came in just five minutes behind the others with NorCal leading the pack. Followed by Four Continents, Pata-Gonna-Get-Ya, Dancing Pandas, Quasar Lontra Master Tapuia, the Chilean Alcatal-Adidas, and Ad Natura.

Mario Pizani of Alcatel Adidas said the mountain bike section went very smoothly despite a small technical problem with lights. Technical problems on bike sections can cause unaffordable delays in a section of the race where teams generally stay close together.

The final teams to pull into Checkpoint 1 were Brazil's Go Crazy and the US team of Discovery & Research. Apart from the two close leaders, most of the teams needed about an hour to transition from bikes to kayaks, but all did so and were on the water before the winds picked up. They will have to reach the next checkpoint on Dawson Island before the 2:00 P.M. cutoff.

In a race that can last up to ten days, the hour difference between the leaders and the followers in the initial bike section is hardly determining. In the days to come, the gaps will widen, teams will fail to make check points, and The Last Wild Race will be reduced to a handful of competing teams pushing toward the finish line.