TARNo2 // May 16th: Snow Day!

‍

Words by Andrew Phillips

Photos by Matt Grayson and Tom Gibbs

‍

Despite being inside a substantially built, large concrete hotel with a very solid roof and walls, I drifted into consciousness with the sensation of rain on the canvas of a tent. Lifting a heavy curtain to inspect the scene outside it was more Montenegrim than Montenegrin, raining so heavily that the noise of water bouncing off the shell rang throughout the building.

‍

At an altitude of 680m at CP1 in Berane, the temperature is somewhere around 5 degrees and sleeting. Up above us in the Biogradska Gora, the route passes at over 1900m, and reports of thick snow blanketing the ground are starting to reach us. Riders began sending through photos of a winter wonderland, with snow settling on the ground from 1400m. Keen to sign up for the lapland experience was Andy Dodd (06), the first of his grupetto to climb from Savnik up into the Durmitor highlands. Sleeping in a woodshed under the owner’s watchful eye, he awoke to a small snowdrift which had piled against him as he slept. Pushing on into the sideways precipitation, he stopped for shelter and found Christian Dupraz (12) sleeping in the next barn along the route.

‍

‍

Behind them, Daniel Perotti (15) decided to prolong his winter holiday with an extended tour to the north west around the tracks of Durmitor. Somehow a wet glove had led to a fat finger error which had caused his Garmin to reroute him to totally the wrong place. When I asked him hours later what had happened, he was remarkably sanguine “I wasn’t when I realised” he assured me. “A lot of time has passed”.

‍

‍

As Daniel headed off in search of a Northwest Passage, Andy and Christian dropped into the Tara valley, before starting the climb to Biogradska Gora, and finally descending to seek refuge in Santa’s Grotto aka CP1. 

‍

Having watched Cristophe Dijkmans’ (14) and Pierre Bischoff’s (32) dots move painfully through the next 50km Katun Roads sector, and take around eight hours to cover the 50km to Rožaje, we were unsurprised to see photos and videos back from them showing even more snow than on Biogradska Gora. Photographer Matt Grayson looked enviously at the unlikely scene, and asked if there was any way to get him in there. Emphatically “no” was the answer.

‍

‍

It is a feature of this race that some of the most beautiful parts of the course will never appear on camera. Their beauty is inherently linked to their remoteness, and for this reason it is neither easy, nor desirable to get a photographer in there. Of course, that means that the outside world will only ever be able to get a slight taste of the Accursed Race, but it means that the riders will have an experience more complete and unique for it. Only they will be able to fully understand and appreciate the vastness, the diversity, the unbridled wilderness, and the occasionally joyous, occasionally tragic consequences of the Balkans' non-stop tightrope walk between pristine nature and development.

‍

Of course, the wooly mammoth in the room of this Siberian race report is Justinas Leveika (02). He is now so far up the road, that the gap back to the next riders seems insurmountable. Even his injuries don’t seem to have set him back, and having got through the high altitude areas before the snow hit he has actually extended his lead over the virtual podium of Christophe and Pierre.

‍

‍

At the other end of the field it has been getting attritional as the race wears on and the bad weather hits. Fortunately riders further back haven’t experienced the same level of snow, but are still finding themselves sleeping out in subzero conditions, with Urs Manhardt (36) dreaming of precipitation and waking to find snow on his face (and presumably Aled Jones playing eerily in the background).

‍

As the race continues to elongate, little clusters of riders form races within races and when a mechanical, navigational problem, or lost passport hit, and a rider drops from their group there’s a sense of loss as they have to look for new riders around them to race. Daniel Perotti experienced this yesterday as he dropped from the Dodd-Dupraz group, and it had also hit Spike Morris (34) hard with the passport incident three nights ago.

‍

Behind Perotti lies Martin Novak (27) in his own no-man's-land, ahead of Alain Rumpf (08), Elias Backmund (16), Florian Buchele (3), and Arnold Gutsche (10). The majority of these riders look to be holed up in the Tara Hotel, no doubt enjoying the same leopard-adorned fleece blanket that I did on TARNo1. Whether it’s been washed in the intervening year is fortunately not a question that will trouble exhausted riders, no doubt just grateful to find themselves under a roof for the night. 

‍

All the way at the back of the race Michael Fidorra (29) labours stoically away at the 550km mark, with Andrew ‘Hitman’ Hatton (4), Markku Leppälä (26), and Francois Bruyere (18) ahead of him.

‍

Scratch Report:

Hannah Vet & Annie Dunlap (37a & 37b)

Jose Quintero (24)

‍