Major re-jig of Thursday's SSDT route
By TMX Archives on 7th May 09
UNRELENTING rain and strong winds during Wednesday (May 4) meant that Edinburgh and DMC officials, organisers of the Scottish Six Days Trial, based around Fort William, had to have a major re-think of the route for Thursday's run.
It should have taken the entry across Rannoch Moor, but such was the level of water coming off the hills that all the many stream crossing were virtually impassable.
The course plotting team were out on the hills for the majority of Wednesday, finally returning to Fort William after darkness, and announced that they had been unable to find a safe route past the many burns and becks which were in full spate because of the heavy rains.
The organnisers based in Fort William were not able to contact the course plotting team as they were out of range of a mobile signnal for much of the day.
Conditions were expected to worsen during the course of the night, so, in the interests of safety, the organisers decided to put their 'Plan B' into operation. They scrubbed the originally planned Thursday route in its entirety and devised a new course for the day based around the Kinlochleven area.
"Most of the sections on Thursday's route were completely inaccessible today with the levels of water we were dealing with. The Assistant Clerks of the Course have years of experience here, and they've never seen water like it.
"As a result, the start of the trial will be delayed until 10.30am tomorrow while a new route is laid out, and riders will set off at two every minute. They'll ride round a route of around five-hours in length, covering 28 different sections, assuming that we can obtain all the approvals we need by tomorrow morning."
The new route was released on Thursday morning and will take the entry across the Old Military Road to link up with the West Highland Way and the first sectionns of the day at Sleubhaich, quickly followed by more hazards at Stob Coire Eirghe and Upper Mamore.
It then drops into Kinlochleven itself, before heading cross-country again up Loch Leide Path, to sections at Blackwater and Red Rocks, before looping into Kinlochleven again for more sections on Pipeline.
The course loops back into Kinlochleven again, before three further groups overlooking Loch Leven at Garbh Bheinn, Cnoc a Linnhe and Pap of Glencoe, before a long road section leads the field across Ballachulish Bridge and back to Fort William.
Meanwhile, Dougie Lampkin still headed the field at the end of Wednesday's run, despite dropping his first marks of the week - a total of ten.
With closest challenger, Ian Austermuhle, also parting with ten penalties, the gap between the pair remains four marks.
A best on day performance of just three marks by Alexz Wigg, helped him to leapfrog into third place overall, just ousting Sam Haslam to fourth after the pair had to be split of most cleans on a cumulative total of 17 marks lost.