21 Feb 2025 - 23 Feb 2025
Batemans Bay, NSW
The Adrenalin Quest offers 3 sprint courses - EPIC 3 days course, CLASSIC course on Sat, and NOVICE on Sun.
Ordos Race Report
Ordos Outdoor Challenge began (for me at least) rushing frantically to the airport on a cold Tasmanian afternoon while remembering all the things I had forgotten on the way (a sleeping bag being the number one concern).From here I flew to Melbourne meeting up with Serge and Maria, and after briefly being held up by security for each having far too much hand luggage we began our convoluted journey to Ordos. We took a stop at Guangzhou, a night in Shanghai, where we had a little poke around this extraordinary city and another stop in Zengzhou before finally arriving.
| A bit of background, Ordos is a recently built city, construction began in 2001, and has been designed to house 4 million people. It’s located in the Inner Mongolian region of China, and is separated from the country of Mongolia by the Yellow River. There are abundant rumours surrounding why the construction of a brand new city took place in the middle of a boreal landscape, some say it’s been built as a monument to display modern China to the world, others a tool to lure Mongolian natives across the border to swell Chinas population, and again a city necessitated by the seemingly infinite (to the locals anyway) surrounding natural resources. To be honest none of these would surprise me and it’s absolutely the most bizarre place I have ever visited, it’s impossible to describe just how outlandish the whole city was. |  |
We arrived at the race hotel, where we met Hugh our 4th team-mate, several days before the start, which allowed us to come to grips with local conditions and sort our gear out. The opening ceremony, held the evening before the race, was massive. It was organised in conjunction with a centuries old local fair and had a rumoured budget of eight million USD. It attracted nearly 50,000 people, and involved what must have been over a thousand performers, a mega fireworks display and athlete chariots. |  |
Stage 1 was spread over two days and began with a 60k paddle, a 22k mixed MTB, an 18k desert run which was followed by a compulsory 7hr time-out then a further 37k trek in the desert. The paddle took place on the Yellow river, with teams leaving at 30 second intervals according to their bib number. Luckily the river was running fast, sometimes blasting us along at nearly 16k’s an hour, seeing us arrive at TA in a mere 4 and a half hours, seeing us move into about 7th overall (we began in 13th). Unfortunately the ever present haze that obscures the Chinese skyline was present, and for the most of the paddle we could hardly see further than the river bank. The mountain bike short and fast, and with lots of thorns you were punished for not running tubeless tires, but there were no major shakeups to the overall standings and we were still positioned in the top ten. |  |
What I was really excited about was the desert run, and it didn’t disappoint (for the first part at least), racing through endless dunes into the setting sun was pretty special. So too was covering about 16k’s in 3 hours, dessert trekking is slow and brutal. We were going along pretty well, but Hugh was starting to struggle after a big day and Serge was feeling a little worse for wear, emptying his stomach a few times over the journey. We kept moving, with Maria setting a solid pace and me following behind with Hugh on tow. We arrived at camp around 11, discovering that we needed to pitch our tents. This guaranteed us about 3 hrs of some seriously sweaty, sandy and uncomfortable sleep before getting up and on the road by 4 the next morning. |  |
| The 37k desert run was savage, and taking over 6hrs we were grateful to be off early, avoiding the heat of the day. After a quick jog up to the large dune signalling the start of the desert, the sun began to rise, providing some pretty unreal views (I wish I had ignored the race for a few moments to get some photos). As expected the desert novelty wore off and the reality of seemingly endless dunes set in. This endlessness was compounded by the fact navigation was GPS based, allowing very little room for creativity and had everyone following in the leaders footsteps. We finished the day reasonably well in 14th overall, having just been passed by the Czech team late in the day. The team did a fantastic job to stay strong towards the end of the day, and I was physically exhausted after spending some serious time towing. The bus trips for this race are not a memory I will particularly cherish with the 3-4hr transit times at the end of each stage nearly as taxing as the racing itself. |  |
| Day 3 and stage 2 began with the unique and slightly crazy horse ride round some paddock tracks, which was followed by a long 100k ride into a block headwind. The start began in order of position, and with 30 second separation we were already going to be scrabbling for the lead groups wheel. Our team struggled with the ride, our equine companions were not the most agreeable and we came in second last, with only the Czech team behind us. We had a massive chase back to the second group on the road and for about 20k’s I was on the limit, burying myself on the front with Maria on tow, luckily Hugh was starting to feel stronger and was able to help by rolling some turns. We finally made it onto the back of the second group, and duly went to the front in an attempt to catch the lead group. However after 15k’s without another team offering assistance, we started to get pretty pissed off and tried to get some other teams rolling turns. |  |
At one stage we literally stopped in the middle of the road for two minutes while I tried to get some of the Chinese teams to help out. Unfortunately no assistance was offered, and we rolled along at tempo until the Czech team rode back to us. They were keen to help and the next 50k’s moved by pretty quickly, even with the headwind. We arrived at the hotel for a final 3k sprint up a might sand dune, before a slide back down on some boards, with some of the local teams sprinting into the finish after having not helped on the road all day. I made them know exactly how I felt about this skulduggery, and heard them afterwards using some new found English that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a 360 song (whoops). |  |
| Day 4 was the last day of full on racing, and it was probably the most punishing of the lot. We spent the night camping in the rain, and in classic display of Chinese manufacturing the tents we were provided with leaked. It was still raining by the start of the 18k gorge run, and everyone was looking a little worse for wear after some solid days of racing. The gorge run certainly looks more spectacular from the aerial camera, down on the ground it was wet, sandy and cold. It was made even more challenging by the fact wasps (I prefer to call them hornets) nests were scattered along the run. Most people got stung once or twice, unfortunately I managed to stop right in the middle of a swarm and before I knew it I was covered in stings. |  |
| I had about 7 stings under my helmet, and another 4 or 5 on my neck, with a few more scattered around the rest of my body for good measure. It was easily one of the most painful experiences I can remember, and I distinctly remembering squealing like a child before running from the hive as fast as I could. With over 5 hrs of wet racing left, mentally I was in a pretty dark place, luckily I still felt strong and the team were having a great day, with Hugh finding his legs, Serge back on top of his sickness and Maria being as consistent as ever. We hit the 42k MTB in about 13th and were riding well, the huge amount of mud better suited to us than some of the local teams. The persistent mud was the most intense I have ever ridden in and at some points my bike was so heavily ensconced I could barely lift it. We finished the day with a 20k paddle on a flat lake, elevating us to around 11th on the day and moving us ahead of the Czechs to 13th overall. |  |
Day 5 was raining again and also intensely cold, my wasp bites were still irritating me, and to be honest I was looking forward to the race being over! The team time trial around town involved 2 laps of a 10k loop, which was obviously saturated and very windy. We caught our 30 second markers, and passed the team a minute and a half ahead, but struggled to make an impact on some of the other teams slightly further up the rankings. The 10k paddle took place on an artificial lake in the middle of Ordos, and we started strongly moving into about 9th overall. |  |
As the paddle wore on we experienced some serious issues with Hugh and Maria's boat, turning became almost impossible and boat speed was down. It was not until the finish did we realise the boat had been taking in water, another display epitomising Chinese workmanship. We finished 13th overall, and due to the weather presentations were delayed until later that night. The ceremonies got under way in a fancy hotel and with unlimited beer it would have been rude not to make the most of the night. We kicked on at a local karaoke bar, with James and Alex surprisingly avoiding more trouble with the local police (after already overstaying their visas). All in all Ordos was pretty a unique experience, a big thanks goes to the team, especially Serge and Maria for organising almost everything. By Alex Hunt. Photos from Alex's and Hugh's cameras |  |
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