Victory in the Alpine Expedition Race!

The inaugural APEX Alpine Expedition Race took part in the beautiful Swiss mountains around Interlaken. Silver Gerber were on the start line with Björn Rydvall, Josefina Wikberg, Mattias Nyström and Aaron Prince.

Photo: Andreas Strand. Stunning views.

The race began in Interlaken on Wednesday morning with a prologue- kick biking, orienteering and rafting. Wednesday afternoon the race started proper with a chasing start based on the prologue results.

First away in the race proper were the local Swiss favorites, followed by Silva Gerber 4 min down and another 8min to chasing teams. After a short run we were able to pass the Swiss in the transition to Kayak and establish a lead of 20min by the end of this first kayak section. We started a MTB section just on dark and could feel the pressure from the Swiss close behind us all night until we made a small navigation error in the early morning which allowed them to catch up.

Photo: Andreas Strand. The first kayak-leg.

They put a small gap on us towards the end of the ride and unfortunately this meant that the organizers weren’t quick enough to inform the Swiss of a small course change further ahead which meant we were again in the lead by 20 minutes going into transition, with the Swiss receiving a bonus of 35min for the extra cycling they had to do. We had established over 1 hours lead over the remaining teams after French favorites Quecha had pulled out due to dehydration.

Photo: Andreas Strand. High alpine terrain.

All through the next 24 hours of hiking and MTB the Swiss were between 1 min and 2 hours behind us. Going into the 2nd night on the bikes we decided to push hard as there was a canyoneering dark zone coming up, and if we made it to this section before 7am we got to skip the canyoneering and wait 2 hours instead as compensation. It was hard to push through this second night without sleep, but managed a 25 km downhill (yes the hills are high in Switzerland) without falling asleep and crashing into the ditch... We were still super tired though and it was lucky the navigation was reasonably simple leading to the canyoneering as it becomes extremely difficult to make good decisions when so tired.
We arrived to the dark zone at 6am so were able to skip the canyoneering and get in 1hour 40 minutes sleep and some Dry Mountain House food during the 2 hour compulsory stop. The race continued with Trekking and the Swiss were still right on our tails during the 3rd day trek, we changed to kayaking just on dark with a 13 minute lead taking their bonus into account.

Photo: Andreas Strand. The second kayak-leg in the dark.

This was to prove the deciding section of the race as the Swiss kayaked to the wrong village, realizing their mistake when they were close enough to read the sign at the train station and having to turn back 3km to the correct village and the checkpoint. This meant that we had over 1 hours lead at the end on the kayak around midnight.
However as normal we thought the Swiss were right on our tails so we made a quick transition to trekking and ran off up the next hill. It proved an interesting night with no sleep, hallucinations, some caffeine and a large mountain goat that Aaron nearly walked right into. Aaron thought that was a hallucination too until the rest of the team confirmed that they could see the goat with massive horns too!

We finished at lunchtime on the 4th day with a paragliding section back down to Interlaken where we were presented with champagne and cow bells at the finish line. Everyone in the team had a great race and we won entry to the World Championships in Tasmania in November, which is our major goal this season.

Photo: Andreas Strand. Victory!

More photos and media-clips:
www.theapexrace.com
www.silvagerberadventure.com
www.multisport.se (swedish)
www.sleepmonsters.com

Photo: Andreas Strand. Josefina paraglides.

Photo: Andreas Strand. Alp fields.

Photo: Andreas Strand. Beatuiful kayaking.

Photo: Andreas Strand. Feet in the air!