Beyond The Edge

...is always going to be challenging. For Team Vanuatu Adventure - the foursome we've been tracking in their attempt to leave an island paradise behind to crack the Hells Bells adventure race in Queensland in October - that road has had a fair share of ups and downs. 

Early days saw the boys riding high with coverage in Outer Edge (on stands now) and gear sponsorship from Teva and The North Face getting them up to scratch if only in looking the part. But then the real training began. 

Max - the most diligent team member with undoubtably the biggest heart alongside leader Troy, went too hard on an MTB stretch and broke his collarbone. The commitment of elder of the local lads, Tim, comes and goes depending, it seems, on his mood (or whether he's copped any alcohol or kava), and Mark, the most naturally gifted athlete, is, it seems, throwing that talent away to laziness.

With 100km of pure pain ahead in Queensland, it could be an interesting trip.

But leader Troy Spann, who has pushed the hardest of all in training, is still hopeful, with a few glimmers on the horizon after a trip back to Oz resulted in some sage advice and the long-needed bike sponsor in Sonic Cycles (Logan, Qld)

"Ashley from Sonic Cycles came through with 3 Cannondale F7 MTBs - perfect for our crack at Hells," says Troy. "And while I was back in Australia I also consulted Greg Toman from ARea 51, an expert in adventure racing and navigation. His advice was invaluable and convinced me our training was on the right track."

"I feel confident that, I and therefore the team, has reached a fitness level necessary to comfortably compete in Hells Bells. It will come down to navigation and that will all be on my shoulders."

Troy and Tim recently completed a 20km run in under two hours followed by an 80km ride and the team's training schedule runs seven days a week.

 "As long as my navigatiuon is adequate we should do quite well and I haven't given up taking it out," says the perennial Yes Man, who has high hopes that Max will return to training and be ready to compete following recovery from his broken collarbone.

Check out videos of the Team Vanuatu Adventure's beginnings here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqHZScdhDrA

and their sustenance strategy here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6DmptBvl2E&feature=channel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like a bit of drama with your adventure racing? Try this for size.

Our cover lads, Teva/The North Face-sponsored Team Vanuatu Adventure (see the latest edition for their story), have been putting in the yards in their attempt to create an improbable upset by taking out the Hells Bells AR event in Queensland in October.

With odds stacked against them - three of the Indigenous guys training for two spots on the team have never kayaked or mountain biked prior to starting training - they set about getting in shape and honing their skills in June in Vanuatu.

If the experience count is zero between them (including team leader Troy Spann who admits to being the weakest link), then the heart count is off the scale. Training started with a run up a volcano. Then it played out as near daily forays running, swimming, riding and paddling, all in between the day job as abseiling guides. 

As Troy related in a few recent emails:

"Training hard.  Oh My God.  I have never put so much effort into anything. Max and I are training 7 days a week for around 20 hours, Tim and Mark are missing the odd training session.  I feel like I owe it to everyone now that I have involved in this, especially the boys who are so much fitter than me and I want to keep up with, and in a real way I owe it to Vanuatu, to go over there and make a good showing of ourselves, delusional I know but I haven't given up the idea of winning the thing.  Three weeks in, I'm getting stronger, losing weight, running longer distances, pushing myself up those hills on the bike ride.  I actually think I will be ready for the race."

 And then this:

"Max (pictured above training hard on the rim of a Yusar volcano) and I were in our mountain bike training to the other side of the island yesterday and on the last hill going down to the other side of the island, Max lost control and went off the shoulder.
 
His helmet was in 6 pieces, there was a huge lump under the skin on his right collar bone and he had skin off everywhere.  If I was looking for a positive I would defiantly say that he is lucky to be alive.
 
We put the bikes and ourselves in a truck back to town.  At hospital the x-ray confirmed a broken right collar bone.  He is moving very gingerly and is embarrassed and hugely concerned because he really, really wants to be a part of this team to Australia.

I hope he makes a speedy recovery because he is the most deserving of the boys.  I’m going to offer him a gym membership so that he can walk on the treadmill to keep his fitness up and just hope that his collar bone knits quickly and that he can still swim and paddle.
 
And the other bad thing is the bike is damaged with bent wheels and broken seats.  It’s the second of Pascal bikes that we have broken, Mark pedalled hard through some mud and broke a part two weeks ago.  So now Pascal won’t be hiring his bikes too us, which leaves a huge hole in our training.  A problem I will need to solve."

BIKE SPONSORS? HELLOOOOO!? Any MTB brands with more heart than Scrooge sensibilities please apply to Outer Edge...

Here's hoping Max makes a speedy recovery. What would a race in Hell be without our King of the Volcano?

Chris Ord
One life. Many adventures. 

 

Occasionally, to bring you all the best in adventure, we have to skidaddle from the desk and head bush. In fact, we have to do it quite often. But we wanted to let readers know that while we're out in the field, Outer Edge is in good hands. At great expense, we employ the very best and brightest to keep the wheels of adventure turning back in the office, spit polishing the pages, tweaking the adjectives and fine tuning the website.

 Proof? No problem, meet Outer Edge's resident Associate Editor, toiling hard (see the sweat beading off, hence the roll of toilet paper):

 

 

If nothing else, Outer Edge is all about grassroots adventure. So we were chuffed when Ian Neville, an Outdoors Ed teacher from Croydon, Victoria, called to ask our advice on his own little foray.

“I’d always fancied being an adventurer,” said Ian, who had come across the Landcare Source To Sea Challenge, a mini-expedition we completed last year paddling (and hacking) down the Yarra River from its headwaters. “But then I had to ask myself what constitutes ‘adventure’?”
 
Interesting question, Ian. It just so happened that we’d spent that very day with pro adventurer Mike Horn pondering that very same question. “When I’m on one of my expeditions, I’m not exploring the land as much as I am exploring myself,” said Mike.

“Of course landscape is a part of it – nature has a way of getting people emotionally involved. But adventure is not about doing it first or for that matter the fastest or longest, which is what many young adventurers seem to chase today. The sense of exploration is lost in that.”

“Adventure is about being willing to lose. It’s about mustering the will to overcome that fear of losing. And exploring is about enduring, yet it must be fun despite, or even because of, the obstacles.”

This, remember, is from a man whose motto is: ‘The impossible exists only until we find a way to make it possible’

Ian’s answer to the adventure question may end in such revelations – we’ll see – but it begins more locally with a call to us to research the Yarra. Thing is (not to fall into that trap, but…) if Ian does conquer the Yarra top to tail, he will actually be the first – we skipped small sections up top due to time constraints (our poor planning) and we have it on good local authority that the fella before us who took four months also missed sections.

And so to Ian’s introduction to adventure:

“Well what a first day! Mid thigh mud, waist deep water, face plants, blood, infection, 10hrs to get no where in a hurry, stolen gear and 6hrs sitting in emergency. Is this what it means to be an adventurer?

I started at 8:30am. Walked, used the C1 as a surfboard, dragged the C1 for 10 hours before it got dark. Due to the lack of light, I decided to walk out and walk to Big Peninsula Tunnel where I was to meet my land crew (my beautiful wife / sucker). When I walked out I popped out at Reefton Pub. A 10-hour day just to get there! I walked up to the tunnel and left my boat at the intersection just in case my wife was driving up and down the highway looking for me. I walked down to the river where she was waiting for me and by the time we came back to get the boat it was gone, along with the video camera and underwater housing and a few other things. Not happy. Very disappointed to have lost the video footage of the day.

While on the river, I came across a wheel. I stopped to video and discuss how every river, no matter how beautiful, has an old wheel in it. I picked it up to throw it out of the river and as I did it cut my hand. I couldn't believe how much blood was coming out. An hour later it was swollen - the infection had started.

After the boat was stolen, I decided it was time to just go home. Once home Bron (my wife) looked at my hand and suggested hospital. We did, spent 6 hours waiting before telling them I was going home (at 2am) without treatment.

So, much fun was had. Dragging the boat through the river was like a drunk man stumbling, walking a great dane who keeps stopping to sniff the various plants and then running forward to hit you in the back of the leg or run on in front of you! It was tough, and when I try again, I'll certainly make a few changes to my plans (lessons learnt from this trip).

And so I guess, this IS what it means to be an adventurer. Facing setbacks, overcoming them and achieving your goal.”

Mike Horn couldn't have said it better. See you at the top of the Yarra for a second crack, Ian.

Chris
One life. No plan. Many adventures.

Troy Spann, the intrepid leader Vanuatu's first adventure race team bound for Hell's Bells in Queensland in October, reports that after a fiery introduction  putting in  hard yards up a volcano on their initial boot camp, he and his team are training hard in Paradise:

"Oh My God.  I have never put so much effort into anything. Max and I are training 7 days a week for around 20 hours, Tim and Mark are missing the odd training session.  I feel like I owe it to everyone now that I have involved in this...especially the boys who are so much fitter than me and I want to keep up with, and in a real way I owe it to Vanuatu, to go over there and make a good showing of ourselves, delusional I know but I haven't given up the idea of winning the thing.  Three weeks in, I'm getting stronger, losing weight, running longer distances, pushing myself up those hills on the bike ride.  I actually think I will be ready for the race."

The local press have taken notice, too, with an article in the Vanuatu Daily Post:

 

Keep an eye out for the latest edition of Outer Edge (Ed 15) - due on shelves end of July - in which the tale of Team Vanuatu Adventure is told... 

OK, so I’m sitting here under the midnight sun, with a spray can of bear repellent next to me and I’ve just eaten my first ever caribou. Not a whole one I might add, although perhaps I should of indulged, because tomorrow I’m setting off on my attempt to paddle the Yukon River Quest, the longest annual paddling race in the world (740km).

Yesterday I sat in my Canadian Canoe (they just call them canoes here, apparently) for the first time. Only my second time in a canoe ever actually – the first being about a week ago on placid Lake Tyres. Everyone else here seems to have several thousand kilometres of serious training under their belt. Under my belt I have some Canadian beer and bits of a caribou.

We start paddling at midday tomorrow (Wednesday), and won’t stop at all until the first compulsory rest area, which we need to reach before 11pm on Thursday night. I’m yet to practice peeing out the boat, but at least I’m at the front.

My paddling partner in the C2 canoe is Iain Seal, a local guy who also happens to be a doctor (could be handy if we meet any bears, or caribou that recognise me as their cousin-munching carnivore).

Oh well, an adventure it will be, come what may. We’re team 76, follow us on the website www.yukonriverquest.com (if the Spot suddenly disappears, can someone remind my missus that I forgot to take the DVD back?)

Cheers,
Pat Kinsella

Tomorrow I run up a volcano. Not just because I'm keen to peer over into the rock spitting caldera, no. I'll be legging it up the steamy slopes of Yuma, on the island of Tanna, one of the southern most islands of Vanuatu, all in the name of adventure race training. The fact that at least three local lads, Tim, Mark and Max, will surely be well ahead of me will mark the fact that they, rather that I, are headed for Hells Bells, a 100km multi adventure race in SE QLD whose first name should ring a few of its second for the sane.

The Three Amigos are abseiling guides with Edge Adventures here in Port Vila on the main island of Efate. Their Aussie boss, Troy Spann, has coaxed the three - his top guides - into the challenge partly for the adventure of it, partly because he reckons they will go well and partly because he's planning on launching an adventure race here in Vanuatu. His fellas - should they make the Hells  - will be his ambassadors.

So here I am, trying hard to keep up with the boys training in paradise. They've never paddled before - Mark reckons his outrigging translates - they've never MTBed before and they definitely haven't raced over 100km before.

So far we've taken the lads on kayaks, with instruction from local Ecotour guide, Frenchman Pascall, and had a crack at the bikes up jungle-clad mountains and across 'gardens' - fields of local produce. Result: the trio are more excited than ever about the adventure ahead and Mark in particular has pushed himself beyond the edge, taking a trip off the mountainside after hitting the front brakes too hard. Typical, the fall that would make most wimper back to their cocktails and sundecks, had MArk asking me if he wanted me to do it again "so you can get it on film".

 The boys are fit, naturally, from their job and spartan lifestyle (it's visitors who do the cocktail thing - these boys live in a outskirt village called Mele where the facilities are basic at best - no hot showers after training). But can they crack out 100km? We'll have more of an idea after the weekend where we'll conquer that volcano at pace (hopefully dodging the fire and brimstone that spurts out and which has already notched up a few victims).  However his comes only after circumnavigating the small, remote isle of Futuna doing what is usually a full day trek in under 3hours and then trekking over the spine of neighbouring Tanna - a first for anyone other than the villagers who live deep in the jungles there.

If we make it? A traditional island feast of spit pig and kava - the real kava, chewed and spat out, I'm told, by the local chief before we ingest it. What a way to celebrate. Thing is, kava is a drug of sorts that makes you go numb. Pretty sure we'll be numb enough. But when in Vanuatu...train as the locals do.

Chris
One life. Many Adventures.

So many will wonder - where are all the blogs?

They're coming, just as soon as we get back from adventuring!

While many bloggers of various persuasions  - financial types, culinary types, culture types - have the luxury of a lot of desk time (not that we consider desk time something to aspire to, mind you), we find it rather hard to pound out any prose while hanging off a wall  being pummeled from above by a cascade of water during an abseiling expedition in Vanuatu. I time-leap of course, as that's where I'll be next week. 

But it has been action aplenty thathas kept our ramblings from your screen.

Our fearless leader, Pat has been out teaching eco-warrior Dr. Matthias Hammer from Biosphere Expeditions (www.biosphere-expeditions.org) how not to go A-over-T on a mountain bike in the Otway Ranges, while the good doctor returned the favour by taking Pat 4WDing. Did they get that lovely shiny Land Rover bogged up there in them thar mountains? You betcha. Keep an eye out for the Outer Edge video of how not to...

While those boys were toughing it out in baby soft leather seats with cruise control at their fingertips, I've been off trying to incapacitate myself, for one without the assistance of alcohol. Just stupidity. Heading to the Blue Mountains I hooked up with one Dean Karnazes, the famed ultramarathon man who last year ran 50 marathons in fifty states in fifty days. In the same year he won RacingThePLanet's (www.racingtheplanet.com) 4 Desert Challenge: four 250km runs through four of the world's harshest deserts including the Atacama and the Antarctica. Meeting him at kilometre 54 of The North Face 100 (www.thenorthface.com.au/100/), I thought I was in for a leisurely 10km run alongside while asking him the  deep and meaningfuls for a future interview article in Outer Edge (catch it in the Aug/Sept edition). Instead, for reasons unknown to science or sanity, I stuck by the man for the rest of the race - 46 gruelling kilometres up and down through the Blue Mountains. Nearly eight hours later I crossed the line, as an unofficial half race runner, at 10.45pm. But I got the interview. And a week of hobbling like a Gollum with arthritis amused all at the office.

So, considering Pat ticked off 14 of the Australian mainland's highest peaks to get Andrew Lock's interview in under 32 hrs for Edition 12, we now have a bit of adventure one-upmanship going on. 

Next? I'm off to run up (and sleep in) a volcano on Vanuatu to train for an adventure race with a few local adventure guides (these are guys from a place where they bungy off a wooden structure using rather inelastic vines). Pat? Well, I think he wins the next round: over 700km paddling up the Yukon River in the Yukon River Quest (www.yukonriverquest.com). Training? He told me he had a quick paddle with a few dolphins on Port Phillip Bay yesterday morning...that 10km outing may just get him over the line...

Chris