Chilterns Winter Adventure Race Report

Saturday 21 February 2026

The Questars magic continued as we managed to find a sunny weather window for the fourth and final event of our 2025/26 Winter Series. Despite the fact the venue had had rain for 30+ days straight, the course area held up reasonably well and wasn’t as wet and muddy as we had feared.

It was nice to see a number of families out racing with us with the likes of regular racers Simon Jennison, Rich Bennett, Oscar Sly and Darren Joint all being joined on the day by their children.

Trail running

As is often the case, the majority set out on foot first with 70% of racers opting for foot over bike to start the day. With 350m of climbing it was one of our flatter run courses but at around 26km it was slightly longer than normal to make up for it. Five teams managed to clear the course with Campbell Walsh quickest in 2:12, followed by Ben Hawkins (2:26), David Chaplin (2:41), Mark Montgomery (2:43) and Andrew Connradi (3:17).

Campbell also had the most profitable run, picking up an excellent 2.79 points per minute, followed by Dan Thorby (2.75) and Ben Hawkins (2.52). In the Female category, Victoria Honour had the most profitable run, picking up 2.1 points per minute followed by Team In Search of Control (Pollie Boyle and Julia Robson – 2.06) and Jen Hunt (2.02). In the Mixed Category, Emma & Richard Gill had the most profitable run picking up 2.35 points per minute, followed by Rob Smart & Bonnie van Wilgenburg (2.21) and Imogen Walsh and Andrew & Alex Cawthorne (2.06).

Running trails

At over 53km and around 600m of climbing, the bike was a biggie! Despite this, five teams managed to clear the course with Damon de Boor fastest in 2:53, followed by Alan Elder (2:58) Team On Yer Bike (Robert Carter, Ed Gurney in 3:21), Eugene Xxx (4:30) and Andrew Wayland (4:49).

Campbell Walsh completed the double and had the most profitable bike, picking up an impressive 2.69 points per minute, followed by Damon de Boor (2.48) and Dan Thorby (2.38). In the Female category, Jen Hunt had the most profitable bike, picking up an excellent 1.94 points per minute followed by Steph Gibbins (1.92) and Nicola Adams (1.82). In the Mixed Category, Rob Smart & Bonnie van Wilgenburg had the most profitable bike picking up 2.08 points per minute, followed by Emma & Richard Gill (1.94) and Imogen Walsh and Andrew & Alex Cawthorne (1.87).

Mountain biking

It was a course that we never planned on anyone clearing although Campbell Walsh got far closer than we expected, dropping just one checkpoint – a couple less than we thought was going to happen. The run leg proved most profitable with teams picking up an average of 1.74 points per minute compared to 1.60 on the bike. For the first time in a long time, rewards for being back early outweighed penalties for being late – probably a reflection of the course being a bit less muddy and running a bit faster than most people expected as we know you guys don’t like being back early!

Campbell Walsh took the overall win in the Open category; Jen Hunt took the overall win in the Female category and Bonnie van Wilgenburg and Rob Smart took the overall win in the Mixed Category.

Muddy biking

Our Special Checkpoints made a reappearance, they carried no point value but entered finders into a spot-prize draw with the following riddle leading racers to their location: There are two of these within a crow’s kilometre of this place, Something ET may use to contact his base. The answer: telephone boxes! Congratulations to all those who worked out the riddle and found the telephone boxes (especially if you actually managed to find the checkpoint hidden right at the top of the phone box!).

Thank you to everyone who came out to take part and support at our event and helped to make it a great end to our Winter Series. Huge thank yous as well to Abbie, Debbie, Robert, Jim, Hillary, Jerry, Sian and Will who volunteered as marshals for the day, Neil our medic and Dan, Naiche and Rob who provided excellent photography. Thank you everyone!

Running

We now turn our attention to our 2026 Summer Series and what a Series we have in store for you all! 25 years of Questars wouldn’t be complete without a stop in Wiltshire where we start our Summer Series on 21 March, followed by 18 April back in the Chilterns, 13-14 June for our two-day in the Brecon Beacons (early bird closes at the end of the month), 4 July in the Malvern Hills, 22 August in West Yorkshire and 12 September returns to the South Downs before our big anniversary event – 25 hours on the Long Mynd on the 24-25 October weekend. We can’t wait to share some more adventures with you all! Further details can be found on our event pages.

Full results can be found here and pictures here (where you can search using a selfie and download high-res images for free).

Finish

A summary of the results follows:

Run-only (2 hours)

In the Open category, it was incredibly close with Robert Barnes and Harry Pearson both finishing on 287 points with Robert taking the win due to a faster finish time. Simon Tang was just six points behind on 281 to round off the podium.

Jessica Collins won the Female category with an excellent 226 points, ahead of Cara Smith on 212 and Nicky Best on 208.

Team Alberfox (Peter Flynn, Amy Kilpin) won the Mixed category with a brilliant score or 248, just one point ahead of Ruby’s Rockets (Sarah & Mark Lowden) on 247, The Brigstockes (Gavin & Lisa Brigstocke) were 10 points behind on 237 to complete the podium.

Bike-only (3 hours)

Alan Elder won with an excellent score of 431 – clearing the course with a minute to spare! Tom Blindell finished second on 274 with Amy Worden completing the podium on 232.

Taster (Run & Bike 3 hours)

Local racer Andy Caldwell picked up a brilliant 369 points to win the Open category ahead of Rapid Alliance (Roy Wouters, Mark Lees) on 293 and Greg Burnham on 194 points.

Mandy Hibberd won the Female category with a brilliant score of 285 points followed by Foxy and Posh (Veronica Benson, Imogen Sculthorp) on 280 and The Gang (Hannah Fitzgerald, Toni White, Christine Parr) on 182 points.

Team Dolly (Luke & Amy Dollaghan) led the way in the Mixed category with 234 points ahead of Team C Squared (Clare & Chris Gibson) with 207, and Team Why run when you can skip? (Simon Munk, Margaret Warlow, Lucy Witter) finishing the podium with 200 points.

Full (Run & Bike 5 hours)

Campbell Walsh was in commanding form to take the overall win on 791 points, ahead of Dan Thorby (760 points) and Ben Hawkins (707 points).

In the female category, Jen Hunt put in a brilliant performance to take her first win of the Series with 589 points ahead of Stephanie Gibbins (560 points) who was followed closely by Nicki Adams on 547.

Rob Smart & Bonnie van Wilgenburg had a great race to win the Mixed Team category with a score of 631 points, ahead of Team Gill (Emma & Richard Gill) on 615 points and Team Need for Speed (Andrew Cawthorne, Alex Cawthorne, Imogen Walsh) on 525 points.

In Search of Control (Pollie Boyle & Julia Robson) continuing their winning streak in the Female Team category with a score of 583 points followed by the Mad Old Tarts (Maggie Salter & Liz Jones) on 456, and the Queen Bees (Julia & June Kingsbury) on 450 points.

Team on yer bike (Robert Carter, Ed Gurney) topped of the podium in the Open Team category with a score of 600 points, closely followed by Legz Akimbo (Daniel Smith, Gareth Prescott) on 455 and The Joints (Darren & Finley Joint) with 337.

Vets

Dave Chaplin had a brilliant race to win the Vets Open category with an adjusted score of 713 points ahead of Carl Silver (705 points) and Peter Lancaster (684 points)

Pollie Boyle topped the podium in the Vets Female category with an adjusted 600 points ahead of June Kingsbury on 565 and Maggie Salter & Liz Jones on 559. Karen Jones was unlucky finishing just ten points behind on 549.