Category: Competitions

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Preview – Sherwood Pines MTBO

The national league MTBO circus moves to Sherwood Pines near Mansfield on the 30th October. Organised by Killian Lomas it promises fast and furious riding and a mix of trails from fire roads to technical XC trails.
Final details and online entries are now available.

The day after Dark and White are offering a 4 hour enduro event  on the same area so why not make a weekend of it ?
http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=75 for more details of Sat

http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=55 for the Sunday

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MTBO World Cup 2010, Relay, Italy

After a poor result on the middle mountain bike orienteering race on Sunday I gave my place in the relay to Ifor who had ridden so much better the day before, and watched the relay, taking lots of photos and generally soaking up the atmosphere as Steph Fountain made her debut in a GB top taking over after a great ride by Andrew W.

The relay at World Cup races is a mixed team, 2 men and 1 women, the women riding the same length as the men! Strategy is still evolving with teams putting off their women either first or second, but of course still putting their big guns on the last leg ready for the inevitable head to head battles.

It makes for exciting racing with lots of chopping and changing of the lead, and rewards countries with strength in depth.

On the last leg it became a 4 way battle, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland andFinland. Coming out of the spectator control Kevin Haselburger had a 20-30 secs lead over Dane Eric Skovgaard Knudsen with the Finns and Swiss not far behind. Everybody rushed over to the finish tunnel to see who would crest the hill first. A very happy looking Eric coasted down the ramp from the last control, with a very frustrated Kevin just behind. Post race interviews by Maria revealed they had been swapping the lead all the way round the course, exciting stuff!

The minor event over it was time for the most important race of the day! The Italians had kindly agreed to let Danish rider/coach/organiser Johan Jacobson and I go out on the elite relay courses as soon as the winning riders were home rather than waiting till the afternoons open races. Cesare the event organiser insisted though that we did it properly getting us to lay our bikes down as in the relay for a proper showdown on gaffeled courses..

The Danish Team and the Brits lined up to watch us go. I got a good start but missed a track on the left opposite our hotel forcing me to go the long way round to number one. On the big climb from 2 to 3 I pulled Johan back in and passed him as he made some mistakes on the way to 5 before we turned for a leg across the map.

The idea of the race was for me to just enjoy it and finish the season with a good ride after the disappointment of the day before, though it didn’t make me any less competitive.

After a mad flat out high speed decent down the mountain road from the col, tyres howling on the tarmac, I made a mistake before the spectator control, it turns out the same as Kevin and Eric, missing a tiny track on the right forcing me onto a difficult to ride track working its way down a technical wooded valley bottom losing me time.

After a nicely taken 180 at the spectator control I gunned it for home but climbing the last hill could just see Johan ahead of me at the top just going into the town. Punching the last he was about 40 secs ahead. Great fun though and the sun had dried out the tracks around the vineyards making it much much faster.

Then came the standard rush to pack the bikes and head off to the airport and home but not before ice cream in the town square.

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Hana “Zaba” Dolezalova

Many of you may have heard that at the World MTBO Championships in Portugal this year, Czech rider Hana Dolezalova sustained  broken dorsal vertebrae (D5 e D6) after a very bad fall. After several weeks she was transferred by air ambulance back to the best spinal rehab unit in The Czech Republic.
At the recent World Cup race in Italy she sent this short inspirational video to her fellow competitors which we were shown at the opening ceremony. There has been a fund set up to help Hana, see below.

Details of fund (translation from Czech):

Our friend Hana Dolezalova suffered a serious injury during the long distance qualification race at the recent World Championships in MTBO in Portugal. It took her the most valuable, her health. Hanka remains immobile from her chest downwards. Let’s try to help Hanka and her family to ease the difficult fight they face. We have opened a public collection with cooperation with the Czech Foundation for Orienteering. Donations that will be gathered will be used solely by Hanka and her family to help Hanka in therapy. We all believe that also in return to full and genuine life.

Donations can be transferred to bank acount IBAN: CZ7255000000001500043001 with variable symbol/note: 111222333.

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World Cup MTBO – Italy, Sprint

The view from our hotel balcony on the morning of the World Cup MTBO sprint was shrouded in mist and fog but it started to clear by mid morning and as we descended to the event it cleared completely revealing the vineyards planted on every available piece of ground on which we would be racing later.

The finish area was in the town square of Vo, complete with large festival tent, it being the time of year for grape harvest and so a time for local celebration.

The pre start quarantine was at a vineyard tasting room next to the barns where the wine is produced. The whole place smelt a little like a pub in the morning, alcoholic! As the rain started to fall the worlds best riders huddled together surrounded by bottles of wine until their allotted start time.

After a strange start where we did not get the full minute with our maps (although everyone was in the same boat) I took a safe route to number 1 but the muddy conditions showed themselves straight away, the bike sliding all over the place on corners and whilst braking on the slippery tracks.

Number 2 involved a muddy slog uphill, where most riders were off and running, unable to gain any traction on the slime, the mud collecting on the bike in big dollops.

Every time I looked at the map, it seemed, it was covered in mud and water which meant judicious wiping with the back of the glove to be able to read it!

The mud also seemed to make my hand-grips very slippery, two or three times one of my hands slipped off the bars.

The technical course with lots of complex route finding wound its way around the terraced vined valleys descending most of the way. I made an error in the middle of the course losing perhaps a minute or so getting confused with the multitude of tracks but then quickly recovered and rode well through the last few until a small mistake missing a tiny opening in a wall lost me another minute on the last control (many missed this as it was not at all obvious).

I finished less muddy than most of the later riders, using my knowledge of mud avoidance tactics from the UK to ride around the worst bits and keep the gears working well but it is the first time I have ever had consistent traction problems in a race. Post race chat made it clear that everybody was having problems not matter the tyre choice.

The course I felt was more of a middle that a sprint, certainly in the early parts, with complex route finding and route choice meaning it was difficult to ride quickly but I enjoyed it and it would make a cracking area in dry conditions.
Given my mistakes I was very happy with 36th showing everybody was having a tough time with the conditions.

Note: WCup Results available at http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/download/result_sprint_wc.rtf

Open results at

http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/download/result_sprint_open.rtf

Photos available at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mark.stodgell/WorldCup2010ItalyTeolo?feat=directlink

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MTBO World Cup 2010, Teolo, Italy

Team GB arrived in Italy to overcast skies and the promise of torrential ran over the weekend. After frantic bike building and unpacking at our hotel it was off to try and tune into the model event terrain. After a fast descent to the valley floor from Teolo we were into the terraced vineyards the area is famous for, before we came to our start area: surprise, surprise, a farm that grew grapes.

The model area was all farmland with major grass tracks criss-crossing the terraces on the vineyards. However, we had been given permission to ride off track between the vines. This made route choice more interesting, and navigation more of a challenge. The vine rows can only be ridden in one direction, though, which tends to be with the contours. A mix of quiet country lanes and tracks, plus a healthy dose of climb, completed our recce of the area before the rain came down. Four hours later, following dinner and a team leaders meeting, the rain has still not not stopped meaning the sprint maybe particularly sticky tomorrow.

I have a fairly late start, which normally would be an advantage, but tomorrow, I’m not so sure.

World Cup Mountain Bike Orienteering  http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/

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Fomby Sands

A 600 mile weekend also brought a foot orienteering race at Formby Sands near Liverpool on Sunday following the MTBO in Devon of the Saturday.

Cath and I love sand dune events and Formby is probably our closest so we decided to take the trip north. Being a round of the Compass Sport Cup the event was well attended with a good atmosphere at the assembly area before a fairly long walk to the start overlooking footballers mansions, ugly new fake Victoriana brick piles with high walls and lots of security cameras.

With the final round of the MTBO World Cup a week later I started determined not to run flat out and to just enjoy the run, concentrate on the nav and not make any mistakes. To many times recently I have paid for a good running result with very sore legs for days later and I couldn’t afford to do that this time.

I started steadily getting good flow through the controls. I had a 10 second wobble on number 8 whilst I worked out the undergrowth marked on the map was in fact the world’s largest nettle patch and I really was not going to be running through any of it. Number 9 was a significant tree which didn’t seem obvious running in and I didn’t have an accurate enough line really but luckily I spotted the flag peeking out from behind a bush so didn’t lose any time. Then came my only mistake. Navigating perfectly to 11 I was distracted by 4 runners going into another control nearby and diverted to it assuming I was wrong and they were right. Shame they were off to another control and were on a different course. I went back to my original route in and nailed it but had lost about a minute, daft !

On the way to 15 I caught sight of Liam Corner in the distance (very handy on his mountain bike too but I have not actually managed to race against him yet). The red mist descended and I put the hammer down. I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I was enjoying myself. I got a better route into 15 avoiding the nettles punching just before him and then legged it. It took me a couple of controls to drop him but the effort put me in a daft position on the way to 18. Running along the vague track I had no idea how far I had come along it and was starting to think I was going to have a big mistake. Luckily after a wobble on an earlier track junction I realised where I was, picking up a contour on the track and had no trouble with it in the end but it was not a clever thing to do. I backed off a little and cruised through the last couple to the finish having had a great time.

I even happier when I saw the results – 5th, taking a few ‘famous’ scalps and only beaten by a handful of young elites.

results at http://www.meroc.co.uk/FormbyResults/FormbyCSCTResults/index.html

Holly, Cath and I then  visited the National Trust reserve we had so recently run through, going down to the beach and looking for the Red Squirrels the area is famous for, but were disappointed to hear most of them had been wiped out by squirrel pox! Together with coastal erosion of 4m per year Formby Sands is an area really under pressure. More details at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-formby-2

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Preview – World Cup MTBO 2010 – Italy

Friday will see a  team of British riders arriving in Teolo, near Venice for the last rounds of this years IOF Mountain Bike Orienteering World Cup series.
The organisers have had problems with storm damaged forests forcing them to reschedule some of the events in new areas, but the races are:

Saturday – Sprint
Sunday – Middle distance
Monday – Mixed relays.

The British team for the event contains some new blood, Ifor Powell and Steph Fountain. Steph and Ifor are both endurance specialists, Ifor getting a good position at this years British 24hr MTB champs and Steph ‘fresh’ from trans Wales:

Men
Mark Stodgell, Ifor Powell (debut), Andrew Windrum & Mark Hayman
Women
Emily Benham, Helen Clayton, Lucy Harris, Steph Fountain (debut)

keep up to date here or at http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/