After a long hiatus, adventure racing has returned to Australian shores with the running of the Rogue Raid 24 hour adventure race. Now in its eleventh year, the Rogue Raid is the largest 24 hour adventure race in the country by competitor numbers. The race adopts a unique, rogaine format where teams are competing to collect the highest score possible within a 24 hour period via multiple stages of mountain biking, kayaking and trekking.
This year’s race took in the bayside area south of Brisbane with a course that spanned South Stradbroke Island, the bayside waterways through to the local mountain bike parks in Bayview through to Daisy Hill. A reduced field of 126 competitors spread across 44 teams toed the start line: all of them Queenslanders with interstate and international teams unable to travel due to the state border restrictions. Indeed, with varying levels of covid-related restrictions across the country, the race was very fortunate to get the go ahead to run at all given the current climate.
Hot favourites to take out the title in 2020 were team Tri Adventure Thunderbolt. The team was composed of two competitors from team Thunderbolt who finished seventh at Eco Challenge last year, with Sunshine Coast athlete Dave Schloss also holding the enviable statistic of never having lost a Rogue Raid that he had entered. And indeed, the team took an early lead in the race, sweeping the first two stages in a little over 3 hours with a handy lead of around 20 minutes over the chasing pack.
The third stage of the Rogue Raid was one of the crux legs, with a long paddle from Stradbroke Island back to race HQ on the Logan River with a swathe of optional check points on offer. Mistakes started to creep in for teams on this stage as night fell and it was only two teams, Tri Adventure Thunderbolt and Tiger Shackelton who emerged with a full scorecard after six to seven hours paddling, although the time gap had grown to over an hour between these teams. However, chasing all the check points is not necessarily a winning strategy at the Rogue Raid, and a number of teams had made strategic decisions to drop low value check points with the hope that they could make up for it later in the course.
Over the subsequent mountain bike stage, which took in some of South East Queenslands most iconic bike parks, a number of teams made the most of their local knowledge including Shackelton Tiger and Every Day Life Fitness Tiger. A few mistake by Tri Adventure Thunderbolt seemed to open the door slightly for these teams to make a comeback on them. However, on the large 30km+ overnight trek leg, Tri Adventure Thunderbolt dropped the hammer and powered through the remaining course to take the overall win. In total, the team collected 60 of the 67 available check points posting a score of 2160. In second place was the veteran team Shackelton Tiger on 2000, edging out Every Day Life Fitness Tiger on 1990 points by the barest of margins.
The Rogue Raid perpetual trophy only ever had place for recording 10 results on it – who would have thought 10 years ago when the race first ran as part of the QLD rogaine calendar that it would grow into what it has now become. Interestingly, Dave Schloss’s name sits on top of the trophy as a winner of the inaugural event and by keeping his record in tact, will sit on top of the new trophy when it’s produced.
A full recap of the race including the live tracking replay can be found on the results page here. This includes a recap of the live tracking with incredible detail of every move and mistake. You can also find the full results along with some great analysis on leg splits and points efficiency, along with photos, GPS tracks, race maps and a whole bunch more. We also love to read about your exploits on the course, so be sure to send through your race reports to rogueadventureracing@gmail.com and we’ll post them up on the results page and share them through our social media links. Finally, another big thank you to event sponsors the Logan City Council and Mountain Designs, along with all the event volunteers who without the event could never run.
The next edition of the Rogue Raid is set to return on 1 May 2021 and is a qualifying member of the Australian Adventure 1 National Series. We’ve already begun the permit process and the course will return to a more traditional Rogue Raid stomping ground (that is, read “hills and lakes”) with some brand new race areas thrown into the mix. Keep an eye on the Raid Adventures website and Facebook page for further announcements soon. Looking forward to seeing you at another Raid race soon – possibly the Wildfire Raid!