Category: Competitions

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Woodbury Common – MTBO

Woodbury Common near Exeter, famous for its Royal Marine Commando training grounds, is quite a hike down from Staffordshire, but not so far from my roots in Taunton so I decided to take trip south for Devon’s first MTBO event.

The area is already famous locally for  mountain biking and has some great trails.

Covering most of a piece of A3 at 1:15000, the area is a huge with a good path network criss-crossing a rolling landscape of open heathland and woods.

I had decided on a strategy of really attacking the climbs but to concentrate on technique and make as few mistakes as possible. I had to avoid several camouflaged, gun-carrying Marines on the way to number 1, and a couple of them seemed quite intimidated with me piling down the track towards them which seemed quite strange with them being the ones carrying the SA8Os!

The first few controls criss-crossed the same area a few times before a very fast descent off the heathland and into the forest where we had our first encounters with some of the commando course, calling for bike on shoulder climbing up slippery banks.

Unfortunately, a misplaced and a stolen control at this point interrupted my flow some what as I phaffed around, eventually finding one on an unmarked junction a bit further along, but the missing one seemed to have just disappeared. Some more climbs followed before we came back across the map for the sting in the tail to the last control. The route choice was a up and round or a short dash across a difficult to ride track. I felt even if I had to run with the bike the shorter route would be better, but how wrong I was!

The difficult to ride track was actually a part of the Marine Commando challenge course. Battling through a muddy stream in a 6ft ditch, bike above my head, I opted to climb over the tunnel I came across as the bike wouldn’t fit. Eventually, I was faced with the exit and daylight above through a great big prickly gorse bush. I shoved the bike ahead of me, got it stuck and then head down just pushed my way through, dragging the bike after me.

I punched the last control and shouldered the bike up the steep climb towards the finish, where, after downloading, I pulled a big bit of gorse out of my helmet vents and my forehead!

Woodbury Common, although having a few too many bridleways to make course planning easy, is a great new addition to MTBO and other than the couple of misplaced controls I had a great time, with some really technical riding and route choices which made me think.

Thanks to Nigel Benham and Devon for their first foray into MTBO, lets hope QO and BOK can now follow in their footsteps to create a SW league with Wim, WSX and SARUM clubs.

note: although the results are now published they are a little misleading as indicated in the planners and organisers comments. I didn’t mispunch, just didn’t find a control that was in the wrong place as did most of the other mp’s except for two mechanical retirees mixed in ! Ive had a good peruse of the splits and was very pleased with most of the times, difficult to say how much time people lost on the controls in the wrong place/stolen but I think I had a lead of about 20 mins. A good day at the office ! 
http://www.orienteeringindevon.org.uk/devonoc/woodburyMTBO10.html

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Maize Maze is back!

The last event of the Walton Chasers Orienteering Club Domination Series 2010 was the sprint race and was held earlier this week. This year, as last, it was run at the National Forest Maize Maze as a trial event ready for a full scale sprint event in early October open to everyone.

The Domination Series conists of Score, Classic, Short/Middle and Sprint orienteering events plus a pursuit trail race. The idea is to find the best male and female in the club and the prize is highly sought after, points being awarded in a league system.

36 Chasers gathered in the failing light to do battle over less that a kilometre of straightline orientering but due to the nature of mazes the expected winning time was 13-15 minutes and the distances run more like 3 km.

As I was processing the results, I got an early start after wondering which shoes to wear (trainers or orienteering shoes) but in the end found the dob spiked Supra shoes perfect getting huge grip on the greasey surface with tight corners. I perhaps went off a bit too quick, making a few scrappy errors losing nearly a minute over the first half of the course.

I settled into it and soon succeeded in dropping the two teenagers hot on my heels getting into good control flow, planning ahead and making no more mistakes.

I hoovered up a few early starters towards the end and finished up on one of the bridges feeling fairly pleased with my run.

Some ominous clouds were then rolling in as we awaited everyone to download. With no power for splits printouts everyone was crowding round the live results screen to see how they had faired. I was winning by a clear margin but knew Mike Barnby was still out. As he came into download there was nervous tension until the result came up on screen. I’d beaten him by 4 secs – sweet !

Just as the last few finished and the collectors went out to get the controls in, the sky seemed to open and a deluge of rain came bucketing down, soaking Holly and I as we ran the few metres to the car.

This years open Maize Maze sprint challenge is to be held on Sat 9th Oct. It consists of two qualifiers in the afternoon and a final held after dark using head torches. Last years event was very successful but a little bird tells me the 2009 mens winner will not be able to defend his title so all is up for grabs.

Full details at http://www.walton-chasers.co.uk/events/2010/maize%20flier%202010.jpg

this years maze has a beach theme!

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Suckley Hills MBO Score (and trailquest)

Three days of uncharacteristic summer down pours had left much of the Midlands very soggy. During a ride on Saturday with friends near Abergavenny I had reached that point where it is not possible to become any more wet and muddy trails soon became quagmires.

Sunday however dawned with blue skies and bright sunshine as I travelled up to the village of Suckley, nestling in beautiful Herefordshire countryside to the west of the Malvern Hills.

The Suckley MBO score was partnered with a Midlands Trailquest, Colin Palmer doing his best to try to bring these two organisations together since their split several years ago.
With the event proceeds going to Pakistan flood relief and a well organised event centre in Suckley village hall approx 70 happy riders lined up to get their start times in the morning sun.

As this was mainly a Midlands Trailquest event we unfortunately were back to pin punches. I spent a while deciding the best way to carry the control card before setting off, wearing it pinned to my arm, and grabbed the pre marked 1:25 thousand OS map.

As the area had a multitude of footpaths Colin had opted to show where we could ride with an over print rather than mark what we could not ride with OOBs symbols to keep the map clearer. This was also done to avoid confusion as he had negotiated access from some landowners to ride on some footpaths.  I decided I would try and clear the course so headed out first into the more complex and hilly area to the South East of the map leaving the faster lanes to the West for the end. Unfortunately fairly quickly I discovered due to the detail on the 1:25000, two layers of plastic and the over printing I was struggling to read more than major road junctions whilst riding. I would normally expect only to stop the bike to read the map if I made an error. I made a couple of scraggy mistakes picking my way through the complex Bridleway network through the first few controls but then coming out of number 11 simply could not make the map fit what was on the ground and could not find the entrance to a bridleway to do an in and out on number 4.  After about 5 mins I gave up looking and headed down the overgrown route to 15, but although I think I now know where the control was, left it after again not being able to fit the ground to the map and carried on.

At this point I realised there was no way I was going to clear them all and that a clockwise route going West first would have gained far more points so decided to just enjoy the riding.

I struggled a little to find some of the controls once I got to locations as they were hidden from view to avoid vandalism and the thick red circles did obscure some of the detail but this didn’t detract from the beautiful villages and some great skitty slippery descents off road.

As I curved north hovering up the controls playing cat and mouse with Jason Howell we started to encounter more and more mud. The route from 9 to 17 was absolutely minging with huge puddles of standing muddy water. I met a very large group of ramblers here. Expecting some grief as normal I slowed right down but for a change was met with cheerful comments, which was a nice surprise.

On the way to number 5 I went south and round rather than riding off the map and back on again as I always assume that you are only allowed to ride on the competition map, and this cost me a bit of time as others didn’t and cut across.  After 5 I was on a mission to get in on time so started to ride faster managing to pick up a few but eventually binning number 14 due to time, before racing for home, getting in exactly on 3 hours.

So a bit of disappointment in the standard of the 1:25000 clarity but the area has fantastic potential going forward with a few map corrections. The variety of terrain and such a dense path network which, if Colin can continue to get permission for some of more of the footpaths, will be great, and would make a good adventure racing venue too.

No results available at present – they should be available soon at :
http://www.midlandtrailquests.co.uk/index.php  and http://www.bmbo.org.uk/results/

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Event Preview – Suckley MBO Score

This weekend sees a BMBO event in the Midlands other than on Cannock Chase, something of a rarity. The event organised by Colin Palmer looks to be very good with a 1:25000 OS covering a small area of fairly complex lanes, forest roads and tracks. Entries are still available at www.fabian4.co.uk
http://www.offroad-cycling.com/ for more event details

View map of Suckley, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, WR6 5 on Multimap.com
Get directions to or from Suckley, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, WR6 5
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Manchester Midweek MTB Madness – #5

 I have not done any XC races this year, nor any cyclo cross races and have been missing the buzz of head to head racing. With a couple of months before the next World Cup race I thought I would try and find a couple of XC races to do. As I work on the outskirts of Manchester, the Midweek MTB Madness series organised at Clayton Vale Country Park, in the Shadow of the National Cycling Centre, seemed ideal.
Held every two weeks throughout the summer tonight was the 5th race in the series with one more to go.

The event was well run with plenty of marshals to keep things safe for the 38 riders of all ages who started the race. The 10 min lap design uses a mixture of fast cinder tracks, short power climbs and whipping singletrack descents, all designed to bring a smile as the course winds its way around the Country Park. The race format is 40 mins plus one lap.

The start immediately goes into singletrack after just 75 metres and I got a bit stuck behind some riders for the first minutes but soon overtook them and settled into a head to head race with up and coming junior rider, Northwest MTB Centre’s John Mackellar. We played cat and mouse working together for the first two laps until eventually I pulled ahead once more to keep the lead for the next 3. He seemed stronger on the climbs and I pulled away a little on some of the corners getting better lines but we were very well matched.

On the last lap I started to get tired and backed off a little, but he quite rightly stayed tucked in behind looking for his chance to get away. On the granny ring steep climb, mid lap, he got it when I stupidly got off and tried to run the steep climb. He pulled about 40 metres on me which I could not get back on the rest of the lap.

Still I was very happy with 4th place and enjoyed the swoopy single-tracks and the great feeling of getting the very fast lines right through the blind entry points to the forested bits.

My legs, arms and hands though zinged all the way home in the car from the overhanging nettles on one of the climbs. On every lap they seemed to encroach more and more. I wondered at the time if they would start to lose their bite as time went on but they didn’t seem to!

I’m looking forward to going back in two weeks time, hopefully with an entourage of Pozzoni work colleague bikers in tow to give it a go !

Results and a few photos available at http://www.taptiming.com/results/hfril/

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Events coming soon !

There has been a flury of new events added to bmbo and other websites in the last month so I thought I’d give a quick update of whats on in late summer early Autumn. I should be going to most of these….

Of course there are lots of other Mountain Bike Navigation Event about. I will add a resource page above at some point but for the time being see list of links below for the calendars of various organisations in the UK…

     
22nd August Suckley Hills MBO Score http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=117
11th September Woodbury Common MTBO http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=118
12th September Exeter Uni Foot O sprint http://www.devonorienteering.co.uk
18th September Bulford Ridge, Wiltshire http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=120
     
17th October Dark & White MBO Score, Peak District www.darkandwhite.co.uk
30th October MTBO – Sherwood Pines http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=75
31st October Dark and White Enduro – Sherwood Pines www.darkandwhite.co.uk
 6th – 7th November  Lake District MTBO  http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/details.php?event_id=72

 British Mountain Bike Orienteering (BMBO) www.bmbo.org.uk

Polaris Adventure www.polarischallenge.com

Midland Trailquests http://www.midlandtrailquests.co.uk/

Irish Events http://trailblazersmtbo.wordpress.com/

Surrey Hills http://www.peaslakemtbo.com/

Adventure Racing http://www.sleepmonsters.co.uk/calendar.php

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OO Cup – Day 4 & 5

The assembly for days 4 and 5 of OO Cup 2010 were at the top of an enormous climb from the car park, but this tough ascent was rewarded by an assembly and finish area in a gorgeous alpine meadow, with stunning views and complete with cows (bells and all).
Day 4 for me dawned as a bit of a nightmare. The internet connection at work back in the UK had failed the previous afternoon and I spent most of the morning on the phone, looking a bit of an idiot standing on the biggest rocks I could find trying to get a reliable  signal. I went straight from stressed IT support mode to the start of my race, and I was not really in the right frame of mind for a good performance. Although I only lost a few minutes to mistakes the combination of this and a lack of running speed put me well down the field in 13th. Still, running through sunny alpine meadows with stunning views takes some beating and eventually later that day I got everything back up and running in Manchester and I relaxed with a great meal out with old orienteering friends in a local restaurant specialising in local food.

Going into the last day I was lying 6th overall but just 3 minutes down on 4th. After the long climb back up to the alpine meadows I shadowed Holly round her final course of the week. For a W10 course it was pretty full on with lots of controls off tracks and I had to give a little more input than usual (including learning the basics of compass bearings!) but she got round OK, and finished top Brit in 5th place. As some children on the M/W10 courses are shadowed to varying degrees and some not at all, the organisers don’t award prizes for the top 3 like they do for every other age category. Instead all the kids are called up to the podium at the prize giving which is a nice way to reward their efforts.

My start was in an idyllic position in yet another meadow with cracking views. I got a great start and seemed to really flow through the course. I coped well with the change in technicality from the fairly straight forward open meadows into the rocky steep kaarst forest and ran cleanly. I then got into a head to head race with an Austrian which was great fun. Other than a little wobble where he pulled back ahead just before the drinks control I lead us through the rest of the technical forest until, coming out, we picked up fellow Brit, Nigel Wright, and the race intensified. As we neared the final few controls we seemed to get faster and faster, swapping the lead between the 3 of us. I nailed the penultimate control dropping the Austrian but Nigel was tucked in behind as we punched the last. I gave it everything on the run in but he was just too fast for me on the line. I knew I had had a good run and was pleased with another 4th position but this time only a minute and a half down on Roger Goddard, one of the UK’s best M35s at present. The winner, Akseli Ahtiainen from Finland, however, was a full 10 mins faster than me – an awesome run.

Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to bring me up to 4th but I finish the week very happy with 5th overall at one of the most technical orienteering 5 days in the European calendar, but that wee stop on day 3 cost me dear – I was only 17 seconds down on 4th place!!

Full results for all days and overall can be found at http://www.oocup.com/
Lots of photos are here http://picasaweb.google.com/mark.stodgell/OOCUP2010#