Category: Competitions

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MTBO Camp 2014 – Day 1

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My travel day started with a very antisocial 3am alarm, what was more antisocial was the M40 to London being shut, meaning a massive detour back round Birmingham and Coventry to get on the M1.

I’d resigned myself to missing my flight but the M25 London ring road was quiet at 6.15 and after a frantic scramble through security I raced into the gate, just as the last few people were getting on board and made it with a couple of minutes to spare.

Luckily Sandor who I was travelling with from then on had everything under control and I could sit back in the hire car and snooze as we crossed the bridge from Copenhagen over into Sweden. We had a huge Pizza in Ystad and a lazy afternoon in coffee shops before getting the late ferry across to Ronne in Bornholm the island in the middle of the Baltic Sea where MTBO Camp is being held this year.

After building bikes in the morning we cycled 12km against a drizzly headwind to Hasle and the event centre to register.

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We had a play with the new Sportident touch free punching system which we are using this week. I can see the benefit on bikes and ski–o but I’ve never been that convinced about touch free punching other than for the finish line for foot O. It will be interesting using it on tonight sprint, I think its placement on the bike is worth a rethink though; I don’t think the top tube by the headset is the right place… Looking down between your legs as you ride through a control might mean not spotting an incoming rider which might make life interesting if both people have their heads down…

I might stick it on my left wrist if I am allowed or on the handlebar grip perhaps.

I am looking forward with trepidation to this week. I haven’t MTBOd for 2.5 years, its  not the navigation I am worried about, its my fitness. After just 25km of riding today I really struggled up the final climb coming home this evening, lets hope my legs are up to the short course I’ve entered.

 

 

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Carsington Christmas MBO Score

carsington1My back has been getting better week on week recently. Is it the 4 months of Pilates? Is it the fact I am not driving 32 thousand miles a year in a worn out car seat? Or just time? No idea, but it means I am feeling confident enough to ride for a little longer and up steeper hills and, for the first time in 2 years, have been thinking about Mountain Bike Orienteering again.

I had originally intended to do the Military Challenge but this year it doesn’t seem to be taking place. A quick look at the BMBO website showed a fun Dark and White Christmas event on the Friday before, just up the road from me at Carsington Water adventure centre – perfect.

The weather forecast was terrible and, to be honest, I felt terrible too, with what I know now to be a good dose of man-flu.

Rocking up in the cold and dark, it was great to see Adrian and the Dark and White team again after so long and it was great to be finally doing my first event as a Vet, two years in!

I got some advice from Adrian about bumpy tracks to avoid, strapped on my long unused hope vision 4 ( now 4 years old and still going strong), Orifix mapboard and compass and headed out into a vicious head wind, intending to stay on the roads.

I’d decided I wouldn’t push my luck and go out for the full two hours allowed and the combination of my man-flu and my sensible head brought me in nice and early in time to catch up with a few old friends over some coffee and cakes. There were some serial comedy moments as people tried to make coffee and tea with the tea urn that actually contained mulled wine….

Lets hope this is the start of a recovery season!

Results available here

 

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Rome City Race 2013

Originally I wasn’t planning on joining Cath and her cohort of WCH juniors on the trip to Rome as it was looking tight for a project in work, #buildsydneylive, and not conducive to a bad back. (You have to have a medical certificate to compete in Italy)
In the end I got a late flight to spectate at the races and see a little of Rome.
Day 1 was held in a city park, full of Roman families enjoying the autumn bank holiday sunshine. Bikes, kids, segway’s, people everywhere. The event was a series of mass starts, the juniors and oldies going off in the late afternoon, middlies at dusk and the Elites in the dark for head to head night orienteering with some butterfly loops to split up the packs.
Everyone came back buzzing having had a great time.

Day 2 was in a more forested park which apparently was very challenging but I spent the day reliving some Architectural History and Junior school classics lessons pootling around Rome’s ancient Architecture “Caecilius est in forum” I’ve always wanted to see the Pantheon and it lived up to expectations with the sun casting its light through the oculus.

Day 3 was the signature event, urban orienteering through the streets of ancient Rome, the start and finishes overlooking the colloseum.
I managed to get hold of a map for a walk with my camera, did a few of the route choice legs and took lots of photos. Again everyone came back with a buzz of excitement. I certainly watched a few big names confused and befuddled trying to work out their way down off a hill top garden surrounded on all sides by huge walls.
Replacing the Venice street race this year Rome had a lot to live up to but judging but the comments at the finish the organisers managed it.
Results available at http://rome2013.net/images/Results/rome2013_overall.pdf

 

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Tour of Britain – Brocton KOM preview

This year stage 5 of The 2012 Tour of Britain (the Stoke on Trent stage) will be passing through Stafford and more importantly my village of Brocton.

The race route comes out of Stafford on the A34 before turning left into Brocton and then turning right for a short sharp Cat 2 Skoda King of the Mountains climb up towards Brocton Coppice and Glacial Boulder after 29km of racing (expected time of arrival 11.20am).

This climb is a favourite haunt of mine for hill sessions being a nice 5 minute warm up ride from home and the steepest bit of road around. I will be there on Thursday together with a gaggle of kids from Berkswich Primary School to scribble on the road in chalk and cheer on Cav, Wiggo and all the other riders.

As I know the hill intimately from many reps up and down it I thought I would preview it and give my thoughts for tactics.

Firstly the entrance to the hill off of the village green is approached after a very fast series of tight right, left and right hand bends and becomes extremely narrow as soon as you get on to the hill which immediately becomes very steep. I’ve marked steep section on the map with blue. (green is fast and more or less flat or downhill and orange is a slight gradient (more or less flat to a proff cyclist)

The steep section is only 300metres or so in length before it levels off and becomes a gradual gradient or flat for another 800m to the entrance to the Brocton Coppice Carpark. A key feature here is the danger from deer who constantly run across the road. There are also some mild speed bumps to overcome.

From Brocton Coppice to the KOM summit at Glacial Boulder, the 800 metres of road is essentially flat and very fast with the exception of some fairly rounded but sizeable speed bumps which will make the sprint for the line a challenge.

So in summary the Brocton climb is half climb half sprint. The narrowness of the access meaning a there will be real advantage to being on the front of the peloton coming into the village, though the finish at Glacial Boulder really suits the sprinter rather than the climber. There is time to attack the steep section, sit on a wheel and recover somewhat and then attack again on the last 800 meters – one for Cav perhaps or one for an early breakaway?

On Sunday my 9 year old daughter Holly and I went to ride the climb ahead of the race to let her get a feel of what it would be like. I didn’t think for a minute she would manage it on her Isla bike but to her credit she got stuck in and rode it all and even practiced a hands up winning celebration when we got to Glacial Boulder after she beat me in our sprint finish on this normally fairly quiet slow road.

The views out over the Sherbrook valley out towards the Peak District are spectacular from the Glacial Boulder trig point so be sure to take in the view after you have watched the tour wiz past. For those wanting to watch the action on Tuesday there is limited car parking on the cross chase road and several small car parks along it but there is no parking at all in Brocton. See you there!

Photos of the climb below from bottom to the top

 

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Olympic Mountain Biking Tickets – Thanks Acer!

Like many families in the UK we failed to get tickets for any of the Olympic events due to the huge demand and, to be honest, we had given up and decided to go to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. However as Olympic fever has gripped the country we started to feel a little left out….. I started following the now famous twitter feed @2012ticketalert to see if I could get some random event just to get the atmosphere, although I decided I would draw the line at the horse dancing!

I saw on ticket alert that Acer had lots of tickets to give away for competitions including the Mountain Biking on the last weekend of the games, so on a whim decided to give it a go.  http://www.facebook.com/#!/AcerUK

 

The competition was on Facebook and involved submitting a photo showing family sport or Olympic fever. I sent in a collage of Holly’s Sport Relief Challenge of earlier this year and yesterday found out we had won !

4 tickets to both days of the Olympic mountain biking, travel cards and a night’s stay in the Radisson in nearby Southend on Sea – result !

Now the logistics have started. Unfortunately Holly can’t go to the Saturday’s racing as she is on stage until 10pm at Stafford’s Gatehouse Theatre in the final showing of the summer school youth theatre’s production of Peter Pan so we are going to spread some Olympic love and take two budding Mountain Bike Orienteers aged 9 and 14 years old to watch the women’s race. I’ve then got to come half way home to pick up Holly at midnight on the M1 to get her back to the Hotel ready for the Sunday. We have also given 2 of the tickets to another bike mad family with a 6 year old.

We are all very excited to be given the opportunity to go to the event we really wanted to go to when we first applied for tickets over a year ago. Thank you Acer what a fantastic prize.

We will be cheering on Great Britain’s Liam Killeen and Annie Last but especially Liam as we have met him a few times when he used to hangout in our local bike shop Mammoth when being coached by local mountain bike legend Gary Foord.

To top it all Holly’s favourite presenter who inspired her to do her sport relief challenge is one of the anchors for BBC at the Mountain Biking

 

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Stafford GP – Crit Race

Last Wednesday night Stafford hosted a round of the Elite Circuit Race Series. This criterium race around the town centre is tight with many 90 degree bends. It encourages breakaways and exciting racing. http://staffordgp.co.uk/

I’ve been meaning to go for the last couple of years, either as a marshal or spectator. This year I picked up Holly from swimming early and we made an evening of it.

The Stafford cycling community was out in force, with familiar faces in every direction. Eventually we settled for a position on the barriers just before the finish to get the best views of the action.

We arrived to see the end of the youth races and it was good to see so many Lichfield City Cycling Club ‘zipvit’ jerseys flying round, which has encouraged Holly to want to re-join and start their training nights again!

There was lots of pzzaz pre-start with sign on, each rider being given a union jack / BC flag to give out. To get Holly involved I managed to get Rapha Condor Sharp’s – Dean Downing’s attention and got his for Holly thinking he would be mixing it up the front and he did not disappoint. We also were supporting local Metaltech Scott http://www.metaltekscott.com rider Matt Gee. Its worth remembering that the difference in support for the various riders varies hugely: Matt turned up at the race straight from a full day’s work !

The track was still damp and slippery from rain earlier as the riders strung out from the gun behind the TV bike but immediately Graham Briggs and Rico Rogers broke away. The chasing pack stayed 10 seconds to 20 seconds behind for the whole race. At ¾ distance the heavens opened and the rain caused a number of crashes. Rapha Condor put the hammer down in the last 5 laps trying to catch but Briggs and Rogers held their lead with Briggs taking the sprint finish. All very exciting….

For more details on the remaining rounds of the series see http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/elitecircuitseries