Graham/Roger and all the organisers

Thanks for another great Polaris which was helped considerably by the weather. I probably wouldn't be writing this if it had been pi**ing down all weekend. I hope you'll stage another one up in this area in a few years time.

This year's event T-shirts aren't as favourite as the traditional ones with the large print on the back. Is there anyway you can make a technical T-shirt still with the large print?

The event shop on the Friday didn't have much clothing above medium sized and why were there no Rab products even though the banners were everywhere?

Apart from that, fantastically organised as usual!

Hi Phil

Rab were sponsoring the event as its first priority

A Few Rab Items were for sale, I was next to the Polaris Stand. I shut up shop at 9.30 as I was competing the next day!!

Glad you enjoyed the event

James

This was my first Polaris. To say I had a great time is an under statement. I'll definitely be doing more.
Thank you for all the organisation which made the event appear to run so smoothly. I didn't see a stall selling event T shirts. Was it at the finish somewhere. Can I still get hold of one or are they only avaiable at the event?

Jerry

Thanx to every one concerned for a fantastic week-end,weather great,check points great,my only gripe
is the pain i am suffering now,next stop spring.
Now lets see where will that be!!P.S. Who else stopped at the Cowshill hotel,was'nt that lady in some HORROR MOVIE,i just thought she was pure class.

Hi have done about 5 Polaris had a great time good riding.But I think it would be good if you had water and not beer at the camp at night beer is not good for that sort of event.
What do others think about it ?
Most of the clothing was small /medium
But well done for the organisation.

Great event, Good organisation, good amount of space at the race control centre (school) - shame it was away from the carpark but unavoidable. Only one real gripe - the drinking water source at the overnight campsite. If you can get beer onto the site you can definitely get clean water as well. I don't hesitate to drink from most UK mountain streams but drinking from a valley level river downstream of a village and directly below a regularly-used road ford? Either get in a water bowser or lets stick to real mountain campsites in future. But maybe exposed sites wouldn't suit users of Polaris or Suppair "tents"!
That is my only gripe I thought the rest of the event was excellent. I don't mind the entry price and I love the electronic scoring system. Thanks and well done.

Yes another well organised event, some great riding, always good to visit a new area.

I'd agree with comments about water, I was suffering with a very dodgy stomach yesterday.
Partly myself to blame for not bringing iodine tablets I suppose, but I've never had any probs drinking from UK mountain streams.

Minor gripe, otherwise a great event.

Just adding my agreement on the water. Great eventbut it was poor to have to rely on river water. I DID use Puritabs but I've still had a bad stomach. The whole beer thing is a bit dodgy too. Don't you need a licence to sell beer ? Not to mention the issue of which country it was bought in. The police were quite in evidence on the Saturday. The words "thin" and "ice" come to mind.

I wasn't that keen on the water this time but have had no ill effects (so far), but leave the beer alone it's a Polaris tradition. If you dont want it then you don't have to buy it. There were a relatively few cans of beer if the organisers were to provide water they would need about 5 litres per competitor so 5 litres * 350 teams * 2 persons = 700 litres or 700kg of water.

The event was very well organised as always and we enjoyed it so be greatfull you have so little to winge about

Had a fantastic (if painful) time on my first Polaris. Can't wait for the next one, once my partner has returned from Iraq (selfish b8stard.)

Puritabs and river water had no complaints from me. My only complaint was the lack of beer (all gone by the time we'd got our heads together.)

Excellent organisation and some of the most challenging riding I've known. Thank crunchie the weather held out.

Great event, really enjoyed the riding and the wide choice of routes.

Just had to have a day off work due to very dodgy stomach, I boiled all of my water. I'll use puritabs AND THEN boil next time we have to use low lying river water, my mistake was clearly not sticking to beer!

Massive thanks to Graham / Roger (your still looking good!) and all the marshalls and event organisers. This Polaris was my 15th I think and probably one of the best despite the 8 hour drive from Cornwall. The water supply was plentiful and the campsites were flat, what more can you ask seeing that this is billed as an extreme event! So please don't soften the event up. As far as the voluntary donation to the marshalls and the limited supply of free beer is concerned - Long may it continue. They are worth it.

Well done to Rodger,Graham,all the organisers, planners and marshalls. A great weekend in the Northern Pennines. Very good route options on both days and a great o/n camp location. Perfect weather made the weekend event very enjoyable.
My 20th Polaris! Senior,Vet and now Super Vet.
Another Great Polaris Challenge!

Another excellent event, a great one to get stuck into. The drive back to Bournemouth on Sunday followed by a meeting Monday morning almost killed me though! The low-lying water supply wasn't ideal, but then again puritabs should sort out most of the bugs. Beer used to be free ... what happened there? Lots of dead animals lying around up there, presumably shot rather than run over by mountain bikers (unlike Dusk til Dawn... we never did find out who ran the rabbit over at 4 in the morning!!!).
Well done organisers!

Another excellent event. Great organisation - even got the weather sorted yet again. Still, I'm sure the Yorkshire Dales will bring back the traditional wet and windy conditions!

No problems with the overnight camp - large and flat with running water - what more do people want. Puritabs weigh in at nothing so no excuse not to carry and they were on sale Friday night if anyone had forgotten to bring them and plenty of advice was provided.

I had a dodgy stomach on the Sunday of the Autumn POLARIS last year in the North Lakes. I think that was probably down to dirt/cr*p getting onto the bladder mouthpiece than any water supply or purification deficiencies.

If anyone found a cat eye enduro computer near check point 4 I would be grateful for its return. It is almost brand new and would have had about 25 miles on the trip distance and about 140 miles on the overall distance when I lost it.

Looking forward to the next event already - quite fancy the French one actually....

Stu - You were not alone with the Lakes PC last autumn. We boiled and puritabbed the water, but my PC partner and I were ill for 2 weeks.

I think it was the high number of farmyards, and the bike washing upstream.

Thanks for all of the compliments but most of the plaudits should go to John Lee and his team for all of the hard work he did in planning the event in a new area.
My apologies for having to dash off but I had to return to Dubai because of a tragic accident involving one of our site team.
Roger is in Indonesia for 2 weeks so we will not be updating things for a while.
As for water, it is becoming more and more difficult to hire water bowsers due to health concerns, our entry forms clearly advise that you should carry puritabs and we advised that the water was from a stream. I suspect that upset stomachs are more down to other aspects than the water supply, but I bet there were no queues.
As for the beer, what is the whinges for, if you don't want it don't buy it, we have done it from the beginning but this time we did not take a lot as in the past we have had lots left over.

Additional thanks and congratulations to John Lee and his team then!

Whingers will always whinge - that's what they do! The rest of us will just get on and enjoy these great events!

The IoM was probably one of the best events that I have done and was well worth the hassle of getting there that put many off (did they miss out!)- I might do the end to end one year - great trails on the tops.

As the Marshall etc have been getting loads of praises I think it is only fair that competitors get praises when they are due, having dealt with an incident of a broken ankle on saturday it was good to see many competitors stop to ensure that everything was to hand what we needed and if not then stopping to help and in many cases sacrifycing time etc, I know it is what you may expect, but most of these go unthanked.

Another great event - thanks to Polaris, John Lee and all the helpers. Thoroughly enjoyed it (again). All the checkpoints were well thought out and crucially in the right place. Having a larger event area made it feel like an old style Polaris which is good for variety. All the points were hard-earned - scores were low due to there being only one 50 pointer each day but this again is good for variety to vary the challenge.
I am worried about water provision. I am not willing to jeopardise my health by drinking dodgy water and the river was a poor source - certainly not helped by being downstream from the Ford. I was very unhappy about the prospect of drinking from the river. Dysentry, Liver Fluke and other nasties are not funny.

sorry lost my questionaire,and after reading some points, I would just like to thank graham/roger and all organisers for another brilliant polaris. We've missed a couple after 18 on the trot (marriage & house move)and it was great to be back, we couldn't have enjoyed it more (even though we don't get any better!)
However, whats all this about clues for the camp location and controls days before!
Call me a traditionalist, but surely part of the essence of Polaris is the unknown/last minute factor.
I think Whats important is a level playing field.As for the plotting, I agree you need space and good light,but it doesn't take that long,we've done it sat. morn. before and surely its obvious pre marked maps sent out would be impossible on cost alone.
Hey up, i'm starting to moan! While i'm on: I'd like to think those using footpaths eg.c/p17,do so unknowingly but i doubt it,it was so obvious, I hope they feel great!
Anyway thanks again for a great weekend can't wait for the next!keep it up (the same)

Graham / Roger / John Lee & other Polaris Helpers

Thanks for yet another great event, a couple of things from the above points though, I took Grahams advice to my �daft question� & bought some puritabs & neutralisers & did not suffer any ill effects from drinking out of the river. To help with the potential problem of a dodgy water supply, my team mate has suggested that the organisers should supply a 2 litre bottle of water to all competitors upon arrival at the overnight camp. I don�t know what the feasibility of this is but the only difficulty I could foresee is getting it there, any costs of purchase / transport etc could be absorbed into the cost of entries. I know that a correspondent above has suggested 5 litres of water would be needed, I don�t know what others use. But whatever, it should be possible to sort something out like this without too much difficulty. We usually try to buy a large bottle of water on our way to the o/night camp so that we have something to drink immediately upon arrival, not always possible though.
Daftest mistake of the weekend, my team-mate booked us into a B&B in Alston for Friday night but as Tony F & one of the other teams will confirm he navigated us to the wrong one. We checked in to the B&B, registered at the school, went to the pub for a bite to eat etc back to B&B to mark cps on map & this other team turns up. The B&B owners were out for the evening & there were no more rooms. I had been asking my team mate if he was sure that we were in the correct place since registration as he had said that the B&B had told him that they were right next to the start & we were at the other end of Alston. Eventually he checked the address & phone no & found that we were in the wrong place. Luckily the correct place still had our reservation so huge apologies all round & we packed up & drove across there. Even more fortunately, I was doing the navigating during the event otherwise I think we would still be looking for the o/night camp now, probably over near Kendal or somewhere.

Keep up the good work & will see you next spring

mpg

I would like to add my name to the list of those saying thanks for a good event - even though I buggered it up, again!! It's a shame to have to use so many roads but then this is England we're talking about.

I did have a bit of the Eartha Kitts on Mon/ Tues and am not surprised at all. I used to do river pollution control and know that conventional sewage treatment doesn't sterilse bugs. Upstream was a considerbale sized village. Add to that the peaty run-off and puritabs are unlikely to do the business. That's my only gripe (geddit).

I'm now off to do that maintenance I should have done before the event......

Enjoyed the weekend. My first overnight polaris since a child induced 2 year break.
I always enjoy the events, the remote locations, the uncertainty, the finish. I never get better than half way up the table ( OK 1/3rd up the table). In the past I was able to take away a professional photo of myself taken near the start on Saturday. This was my prize. However this year I have no photo to add to my collection�has this gone forever?
Water, puritabs and a boil worked for me, also anti-bacterial baby wipes before camp food and after a poo may of helped!

And what mpg failed to mention was that his puritabs were a year past their "best before date"!!!

The idea of supplying water in bottles is not so daft. At the National Points Series (that's Cross Country racing, round and round in circles if you don't participate in such things) at Thetford Forest the campsite/arena has no water supply so Ken Ward, the race organiser goes down to his local Tesco's, orders a thousand or so 2 litre bottles of Tesco value spring water (0nly 29p normally but I think he gets a better deal) and then collects them on a large Ifor Williams trailer. The trailer is parked up next to race control and everone helps themselves.

Even at retail price a bottle for each team would be under �150. Although personally I carry a 2 litre camelback and a 500ml bottle, plus that required for on site drinks and cooking so I'd need more but adding the cost of two bottles per competitor to the entry fee would only cost us 58p extra and any left over will no doubt last to the next event as although water will undoubtedly have a best before date like everything else these days, does water really "go off"?

(OK so I know the major failing with this plan is that it's most probably a bl**dy long way from Alston to the nearest Tesco or equivalent)

if the beer at the overnight camp is a money making exercise, surely you can sell water and make just as much money.
great event, good weather, roll on next March.

Great event but, I found the hills a real problem and carrying all that weight was very taxing on my body. My legs ACHED on Monday! Could you possibly hire a larger trailer for the bottled water and carry our kit in it? Oh and if you could possibly organise the event in the Lincolnshire/Norfolk area of the country, that'd be great.

maybe you southern pufftas shouldnt let you stomach fauna get so used to your Marks and Spencers 'Highland Glen' spring water ...Judging by the usual state of the porta loo content bad gut has more to do with drinking Hi 5 and eating Pasta for a week before sitting on a bike for 7 hours than water...oh by the way did you know Allendale was one of the last places in country with FMD...now where did we bury those sucklers.

well i think all those post event guts troubles are more to do with underlying ailments coming to the fore after wrecking your body all weekend. we participated (note I fail to say "competed") as a quintet, and only the unfittest chap got the Eartha Kitts. Me? I'm always very regular so didn't notice any difference. and on that bombshell....

Mick that really is a load of bollox. For the record, I've ridden Transalp, Cristalp and the other two Polaris this year and my guts were fine and dandy after all of them. I got the s*its from the river water and so did alot of other people.

All this 'the only people who got stomach problems are namby pambys' really is annoying and pandering to the people who should have organised a clean(ish) water source in the first place.

I've got no qualms about getting water from a high up, fairly remote place (ie. a reasonable distance away from potential pollutants). We've had a qualified river pollution worker say on this thread that puitabs wouldn't have worked on the low lying river water we had to drink.

I boiled my water as advised, got pretty ill after, I've still got problems and hope they won't affect me next weekend when I'm doing the KIMM (who, just for the record, test their water source for dodgyness beforehand).

All some of us are asking for is a decent source of water from now on, not too much to ask for surely?

Nowt wrong with my guts,but then us up north are used to drinking hard water!!
Know what they say Drink piss shit lava!!

Tell it like it is Heather!
Could'nt agree more.

i seem to remember everybody whinging about the water in the autumn event too...why dont we ask that overnight camps are at places where you can get water bowsers, piped water, microwave ovens & satelite TV. Point is Polaris is about being self sufficient so sort your own water out its really not that difficult ...what would you have done if you were in an adventure race, or on an expedition.
Every weekend at the national water sports centre at holme pierre point folks with weak guts get a gob full of the trent and get deli belly...do they stop paddling and take up carpet bowls or ask national rivers to drain the river? most common solution for paddling in polluted rivers is to drink a bottle of coke afterwards.

Yes the Polaris is an event of which self sufficiency is a major part. 'Remoteness' is also supposed to play a big part. The overnight campsite was next to a house (no doubt with microwave and satellite TV) and downriver from lots of houses and some villages. The 'remoteness' (ie. AWAY from satellite tvs and microwave ovens) that's plugged by the organisers should play a big part in ensuring the water supply is a relatively clean one.

The Polaris is a great event, remoteness and self suffiency play a big part in why it's so good. We all (well nearly all) work for a living however, being in a good enough state to go to work after the Polaris is not an unreasonable request.

And just for the record about soft southerners Mr Pathfinder General, I live in Yorkshire and my guts were still bad (I am a girl though) and the overall leader on the Saturday night (finishing second overall) came from below the Watford Gap!!!

Giles how exactly are we supposed to sort our own water out ? We've heard that puritabs and boiling didn't reliably kill the bugs. If we've been on an expedition we wouldn't have been camping in Allendale. This is a paid for event - people are making a making a living out of running it. Making customers ill is not good business.

If it had been a mountain stream that turned out to be dodgy fair enough but that river was an obvious risk - and ,to reiterate, was beyond the help of the advised puritabs. Due to the nature of the event participants can't decide beforehand whether they're prepared to risk the water in a known location - you just turn up at the specified MR and have to drink what's there.

You can call every comment on this a "whinge" if you want to but a water supply with a decent chance of being safe is one of the basic requirements of the ON camp.

This is a resl question for the Biology folk, not a sarcastic comment...
Why did the water that was bad enough to beat Puritabs only affect some and mot all folk?
The comment about pushing your body making it vunrable to attack seems fair to the lay-person.

Puritabs and boiling water wont help you if its got giardia or something else that is encapsulated, or if you cant get the water hot enough long enough. A filter will though as will zapping it in the microwave...
The principle reason as to whether you can cope with water with something in it (whether its lumps of limestone or Camplyobacter) is what your stomachs up to...really if you want resistance stop washing your food ...dirt is good for you.

A basic requirement of an overnight camp by definition is where you stay overnight isnt it? people moaning about water for gods sake why dont they drink Port.
Next up will be 'oh it was windy and i never got a decent nights sleep in my suppair tent, so I couldnt work properly the next day'

Hebden Bridge is south of the Centre of Britain...(you should have noticed that during the event)...so you are officially a southern nonce.

Now then where are the other fish on this discussion board

Well Said Heather
I spoke too soon. My Polaris team-mate phoned me at the weekend & asked how I was as he had been ill all week with similar symptoms as those above, he suspected the water as well. Other than being a little unwell all week [I thought it was just tiredness], I seem to have survived �unscathed�. We are from Co Durham so no comments about southerners etc. The reason I made the suggestion in the first place was to eliminate what is becoming a lottery, ie the water quality, with the o/n camp being downstream from villages, people washing bikes in the stream, hour long queues at water bowsers sometimes in horizontal rain, the �open sewer� that was the water supply in the cheviots event and so on.
The bottom line is that all of the above & others are inadequate, I know this is supposed to be a challenge & a wilderness event, but the organisers do have some kind of duty of care to the participants on this issue, and it is one that could be resolved so easily & at minimum cost. I�ve done 16 spring / autumn PC�s, my team mate has done even more & we ride them simply for the �enjoyment�, being poisoned by the water supply should not be part of it.

Durham is definitely south of the centre of britain

if this is what happens when your in a semi-populated area, what you going to do come spring
when it's gonna be in the NORTH OF ENGLAND!
I tell you what i've got a mate drives milk tankers,what we'll do is find out where the o/n camp is fill tanker with a million bottles of buxton best, drive it there BINGO!
That should appease the southern softies!

Bingo...now theres a game...oh and the women down our club wot bewteeez...

Bingo at the overnight camp! Fantastic, I'll fill my spring form in now.

Another dodgy stomach here also on the Monday and I was due to fly out to Spain on Tuesday morning after the event! Must have been the water - bowsers next time please!!

Just got back from a weeks biking in Spain to these cold dark mornings! Brrr. Just caught up with the threads on the drinking water source at the ON camp. I was very ill on the Monday night and Tuesday morning and was violently sick. I did wonder whether this was related to the water supply and its been confirmed. My profession is a hydrogeologist and I work for one of the big water companies and I get involved with catchment contamination issues all of the time. An upland source would probably have been OK with puritabs but the low lying stream really was a poor water source for the event. There were sheep within a few yards of the source and it was also a fairly slow flowing river close to houses and the road. Its not really surprising that so many had the Eartha Kitts!

Forget all the talk of hard northerner's stomachs and softsouthern types - why do all the threads come back to this?? At the end of the day, the ON camp really should have had a better source of water as someone could have been really seriously ill. Boiling clearly did not work. Giardia and crypto are not that common but all of the other coliforms and nasties in the water are likely the source of all of the problems - something that bowsers would have prevented. Each year the KIMM manages to get bowsers to very remote camps so theres no reason why the Polaris can't do that either.

I did not see the O/N until I got there as I was in Dubai but it was a mistake to use the river, we did the same one year at Orton.
We should have done better and my apologies to all, I hade a dose of the trots but I always do after eating Wilfs.
A couple of points though.
Since Water Authorities went private it has become more and more difficult to get water delivered, hire companies do not seem to carry water bowsers any more. We used to use milk tankers but they seem to have dried up, sorry about the pun. So Pathfindergeneral can we borrow your mates Milk Tanker?
I will have to touch base with the KIMM team to see how they do it but I have experienced some dodgy KIMM water suppilies in the past.
Water in bottles is no problem to but or getting it there but disposal of rubbish on a Sunday is, why do water bottles in the UK have deposits on them like they do in RSA, one day we will bury ourselves in PET bottles.
BTW MikeH we are not making a living out of this if you think we are then you are welcome to buy us out.
As the event planner for the spring event is also the KIMM planner then we should have no problem with water in March.

On a more positive note, I did notice that all the bogs had a bar of soap in them - much appreciated. I had brought my own but it was good to have it provided.

Basic personal hygeine v important and easy to get wrong when "basic" camping (not that I'm implying anyone's problems were down to this but I learnt the hard way years ago why yer mum always nagged you to wash yer hands when you were a kid).

well i for one never drink from streams or use portaloos where i can't scrub my hands properly after a poo. i simply save it all up and let rip on the motorway services. i also don't drink (or eat) for the duration of the event.

So Ray, I guess that makes you full of shit then???

:0)