Atlas Mountain Race 2024 Diary – Day 0 – Road Race to CP1

The first stint through the night from Marrakech to checkpoint 1 at Telouet.

#atlasmountains #atlasmountainrace #bikepacking #cycling #mountainbike

I saw yusa at the front of course so much itop 300 person you have enough people we are the L yeah ride Morocco we time you woohoo w yeah the roads are actually quite wet there in mares so what happened is that we were told that the race is officially

Cancelled because they could not get all the permissions they needed to start with police escort so Nelson said that there’s nothing stopping us from riding out there on the bike packing trip on our own so that’s what we’re doing but of course is they’re still doing all everything regarding the event like

Mining the checkpoints and responding to the tracker and things like that and uh Nelson suggested that we take the detour so we’re not going over tette pass we’re taking the main road to tette which should be a lot quicker actually I have uh one in front of me

Who’s doing kind of the opposite strategy that I’m doing because I’m having no I’m having no backpack I have um a big tail F full of stuff behind my seat while he’s riding in backpack and no no real seat pack I think we are at the point where we are not allowed to

Draft anymore so I’m uh dropping back a little we’re at the foot of the high Atlas Mountains here now climbing start just started a gradual climb here now it’s about to get dark so this is some of the last I’ll see of the mountains for now this is it I’m doing the Atlas

Mountain race this is what I’ve been looking forward to all winter and here I am so we’re just started kind of riding alone so I mean it’s uh I I have to get used to the feeling of being by myself on the road from now

I mean I can still see people in front and behind but uh I’m not riding with them anymore and sooner or later I won’t see anybody around very much I’m from Norway hello hello no sorry this is the end of the first detour so now we’re back we’re taking to

The right a and then we’re back on the official course follow this road to the main National Road this is your new Direction have the best time ever this is uh very confusing because uh when we were supposed to turn right there we were told to at least to

Instead continue this way which is really the opposite direction on on the original track so we are riding away from serton right now but apparently we are supposed to to be able to get into a national roads down here so so yeah we don’t actually have a root for this particular

Segment so my slight dilemma here now is if I should eat or not because I I well I had a stomach bug earlier today and uh so today I’ve only really been eating light stuff like rice and yogurt drinks and some Coca-Cola and uh yeah and then I I’ve

Had two bananas now for the 3 hours that we we’ve been riding I’m getting hungry so I think think I think we still have a way to go to cir then and um I think I’m going to have an omelette there but I probably should try to eat something now a it’s muddy

Here we are I think now we are supposed to be going on this road all the way to tette oh this one goes to Yeah we actually descended down to 700 M we have to go up again a yeah yeah yeah and uh unforunately we were

Already at 1,50 M so we have descended 350 that’s more than I mean that’s almost down to mares well at at least we’re going to have an easy ride to tette now I mean I mean it’s still climbing of course but no hiker bike probably yeah no hiker

Bike well actually I I sometimes like it if it’s not too long because you’re kind of relaxing your body when you walk a little bit right I like it yeah now that we’re down on the main road there’s probably a lot more resupply I’m going to buy some uh yogurt drinks

Here I’ve been going on this main road for a while now and we’re now back up to well we’re up to 1250 M we are getting close to ciron now now and I think that we don’t have much more climbing to do but rather some descending so but the road here is no

Problem to ride because there’s a wide shoulder as you can see and of course very little traffic but yeah I feel entirely safe riding here there was actually a fair bit more climbing to do we’re at, 1450 now and the temperature is 4° so far I haven’t needed a jacket but

I think for the the sent here I’m going to need that so stop and put that on I made it to ciron but is there anything open here looks a bit quiet right I was worried there for a second but here we are perfect they didn’t have omelette there

But they had uh soup very good soup and uh two bowls of soup cost cost me1 EO so uh not exactly expensive so I actually still feel hungry though uh but I I mean I have I have plenty of food on the bike it’s just the kind of food

That I don’t necessarily want to eat when I’m not feeling that great so we have um about 1,000 M of elevation to do now up to the pass and then downhill to checkpoint one I guess a little bit of flats also going east the time is now4

2 and uh I’m feeling drowsy and uh I think I’m going to take a um caffeine shot we’re at 2,000 m above sea level and uh this seems to be a very spectacular climb actually but since it completely dark I can’t really see much of it except when there’s a car uh up

Ahead I can I can see a car high above me lighting up some of the road so yeah it’s too bad but uh that’s how it is we ride half of this ride in darkness so I believe we have 200 more M to go to the

Top and we got a message that it’s supposed to be very windy there uh down here it’s very calm we are at the top and yeah it is quite windy here all right let’s let’s get down from here now get down to checkpoint one it’s 4° here and it does it o it’s

Windy it does it doesn’t feel cold at all and um I’m wearing my winter jacket and my winter gloves but I I took my hat off because it was just too warm in the climbs so it’s it’s not very it’s not very it’s not very cold it really is windy here and uh

Sometimes I have to Pedal downhill in order to not stop there a short uh uphill here in pretty horrible wind only a couple more kilometers to checkpoint one but the wind is making it a real struggle here we are checkpoint one I’m so glad to be here

Now I’m going to go and get some solid food and I am I also need to get some rest I I can’t go out in this kind of wind it’s horrible oh my God that was hard talking chips bis