JPFreek - Index

JPFreek - magazine - Index

An Odyssey
of Adventure
Text and photos by Brad Pennington
The sport of adventure racing can be traced back to the Adventure racing consists of four core sports: running/trekking,
inaugural edition of the Raid Gauloises in 1989, a French race
mountain biking, kayaking/canoeing and fixed ropes
held on New Zealand’s South Island. This mostly-annual event
progression, and the non-athletic sport of orienteering/
was an instant success in Europe. A carbon copy of the Raid was navigation. For sake of brevity, this article will bypass ropes and
brought to the USA in the form of the Eco-Challenge in 1995, and navigation except to recommend that if you are a total novice at
with the success of both races, the sport became a global
both, then I recommend that you seek out an expert’s
phenomenon. Despite the loss of the Eco (2002) and the Raid
(2006), adventure racing’s popularity has continued unabated.
instruction in both.
The disciplines in an adventure race can include any
non-mechanized means of transport, paying heed to an
unwritten but universal ethos that they be environmentally
friendly and suitable to the host country’s terrain and culture. In
the Raid in Madagascar, the course was too remote to reach the
starting line by vehicle, so the teams skydived. In Oman, they
included a camel-riding section. In Vietnam, we built our own
bamboo rafts, then tied them atop and between our two
canoes, loaded our five mountain bikes on the raft, and paddled
34-miles downriver before embarking on another bike leg.
These exotic locales can inspire the experience of a lifetime,
but they are not a prerequisite to enjoy this highly addictive
sport. Events can be found in almost every corner of the country
today, and at almost any conceivable distance ranging from
sprint to expedition. So wherever you live, there is an adventure
just around the corner.
Raid Sweden
Raid Sweden