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The blog of Mark Stodgell, Orienteer and Mountain Biker. In his spare time works as an IT Director
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Airport, Lost in Translation.

Coming out of Manchester airport security on the way out to the World Cup in Sweden, Alan and I were accosted by a hysterical, middle aged Chinese lady. She thrust a bit of paper in front of our noses and started frantic jabbering and arm waving.

The bit of paper said, ‘What number is the departure gate for Frankfurt?’

To be fair, you do come straight out of security into what looks like a crash between Debenhams, Toys R Us and a high class off license, with no signage, but she was going bonkers, looking like she was about to burst into tears.

We tried to calm her down but I suspect the problem was she could not recognise any Roman characters and was like a rabbit in the headlights and scared.

Eventually we got her through to the information point (closed) and could at least point to a screen to show her gate was not yet being called (in fact not for another 40 minutes). Then she produced a mobile and asked Alan to speak to her daughter, who eventually calmed her down.

She shuffled off towards the gates (still no number had been called) a little happier, and we felt very good at having been good Samaritans, but a little relieved to have got rid of her.

Over the next hour we kept seeing her at the head of an ever-growing gaggle of Chinese travellers, still seemingly totally confused as to where she was meant to be and when wandering between the various gates. She kept us amused, though!

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Please vote for Chase Trails !

Please see the message from Chase Trails below, The Cannock Chase singletracks don’t build themselves so please give them your vote.

I’m writing on behalf of the volunteer trail building group Chase Trails. We’re delighted to announced that we have reached the semi-finals of the National Lottery awards.
 
For over 8 years Chase Trails volunteers have worked to design, build, maintenance mountain bike trails on Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. Over 100,000 people have now ridden the network of cycling trails built in partnership with  the Forestry Commission.
 
The trails continue to grow thanks to our efforts building trails every Sunday morning.   

I konw you have used the trails at Cannock in the past and I writing to ask if you would support our project by helping us promote this news and encouraging people to vote for us. By supporting Chase Trails you’ll be showing your support for the trails and the work the volunteers do to build and maintain them. We’d encourage all of the mountain bike community to get behind us and show their support for trail development and the future of sustainable mountain biking in the UK.
 
People can vote online www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards/best-sport-project/141/ or by calling 0844 836 9721 (voting closes at midday on 20 June so vote today)

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Chiropractor and sports massage.

I have been having regular visits over the last couple of months to my local Chiropractic clinic who also have a sports massage chap.

http://www.chiropractic.uk.com/index.html

I have long been convinced that injury’s do not just appear, unless you have a physical incident, ie foot down a rabbit hole or an big fall from grace off of a bike. Normally I find those niggly little injury’s, ie muscle strains etc, are caused by something else impinging on the area and a slow build up until they become chronic or an annoyance affecting performance.

I have always had a very unstable lower back, in fact I can do a bit of self manipulation stretching my back if I feel a bit ‘asymmetrical’ at times, which can be a little unnerving for anyone listening to the cracks. This tends to then trigger other factors if not kept in check, such as muscle imbalances and general deep muscle tightness, which then leads on to overuse injury’s elsewhere.

I tend to have an MOT with the Chiropractor every 3 or 4 months now to keep me right, but recently have been having some good value sports massage from his colleague too, concentrating mainly on sorting me out after any running races which tend to leave me not being able to walk down the stairs properly the next morning.

The two treatments together, particularly some deep muscle massage in my glute’s have kept a couple of niggles at bay recently, including a calf strain and a troublesome inner hamstring.

Throughout the years I have used all sorts of ‘practitioners’ its just a case of finding a combination that works for you.

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Sweden World Cup / World Masters Preview

Thurs 16th June will see a large team of Brits flying to Sweden to compete in the 2nd round of the 2011 MTBO World Cup and World Masters Championships. Sweden although being one of the top nations in the world in foot orienteering is relatively new to MTBO and it is hoped that hosting a World Cup round will increase participation in the country.

Full details at www.mtbosweden.se

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Dark and White #5 – Monsal Trail

Heavy showers punctuated the afternoon as I travelled up to the 5th round of the Dark and White Summer series 2011, centred on the newly finished Monsal Trail, complete with old lit railway tunnels. Another feature of the Monsal trail is that it nestles in a huge valley with outrageous climbs out to the north and south meaning that route choice would be very important.

I headed out south hoovering up controls but was a little hesitant with the navigation through Brushfield though noticed a few people steaming past me obviously knowing exactly where the correct trails lay from previous knowledge. We then had a seemingly unending series of farm gates to negotiate.

The decent to Monsal head viaduct was a little hairy and I enjoyed the stopping power of some new SLX brakes I have acquired to get me through the season whilst Avid look at my Elixirs under warranty.

It was a fairly straightforward route until Tideswell, where with time running out it was a matter of taking controlled risks as I was never going to complete the circuit through Wormhill in the time available.

I got it about right though steaming down into the finish just over 2 mins late.

Looking back I probably should have left the number 1 – 10 pointer which would probably have given me the time to complete the Wormhill loop.

The newly opened tunnels on the Monsal trail were great and make this a fantastic place to ride for all ages and abilities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsal_Trail

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Devon

Combining a long ride with a trip home in the car can be a good way of munching up the training miles without impacting too much on family time, cycling to where we are off to, or getting dropped off 3 hours from home!

So, at the end of our Cornwall holiday I found myself dropped off  just off the A30 south west of Exeter, on a lonely lane, with an 80-odd kilometre to ride back to my parents house near Taunton.

Last year I rode from Exeter Services via the A38, which was very boring, so this time I picked a more interesting route via Crediton and Tiverton through lots of back lanes and rural roads.

After a quick warm up on a more major road I dived left into a warren of little lanes, twisting and turning towards Credition, past curious little villages, old farmhouses and a patchwork of fields.

The road rolled over a seemingly never-ending series of short climbs and descents, before a fast drop into the market town of Credition. The last time there was about 20 years ago for the 100 th run of Kirton Hash  (set up by a couple of pals from the South West Junior Orienteering Squad), one of the many Devon Hash House Harriers groups now running. In fact I think it is now possible to hash every night of the week in the county (for those not in the know a description of Hashing can be found here).

From Credition I had a long slow climb up in to more typical Devon rolling countryside, with hills and dells sprinkled with farm houses, small woods and very little traffic. It was simply sublime as the sun slowly dipped towards the horizon.

Unfortunately, from Tiverton I had a 20 minute section on a very busy dual carriage-way, which was very unpleasant, before rejoining more familiar roads through Wellington and on to Taunton.

Parts of North Devon are just so far off the beaten track that time seems to have stood still and remind me of the area around Taunton 25 years ago. I look forward to a more relaxing ride through this beautiful area one day.