Another journey south took us to the venue for a middle/long race this morni
ng. The start was on a pretty foot bridge over a stream, next to an historic museum village with old houses, workshops and barns. There was bright sunshine, but a cold wind blowing.
There was more direction changing, route choice and fine navigation required in today’s race, but also much, much more climb. The course required careful route choice to avoid unnecessary ascents and descents and caught many out.
In hindsight my route to number 1 was not the quickest, but I essentially played it safe, not wanting any more mistakes on a first control. However, my route choice to number 2 using the road was very slow at the end, losing me too much climb and forcing me to get off and push up to the control site. After that I got into the flow and rode the rest of the race fairly cleanly, pleased that I seemed to pick the better route choices, staying away from the tricky, slow-to-ride tracks.
The event was marred for me, though, when I realised on the way into number 14 that I’d lost my Garmin! I promptly rode straight past the control and had to turn and go back up the hill.
I finished strongly and am happy with 34th place, but the steep hills played to the strength of the Danes and Russians, pulling them 20 minutes ahead.
I went back out for another 45 minutes retracing my “steps” & looking for my lost GPS, but to no avail…….
A very tired Stodge got back to the patiently waiting lift back to the hotel, but not before the suggestion of a tasty hot dog from the local cafe.
The area was quite similar to Cannock Chase in some ways and I enjoyed the changes in pace the hills provided, and some exciting fast and technical descents to the river. The course looping in the area near the finish was very difficult to read, though, and at one point I found myself on a beeline for the wrong control only to end up looking down on the control site I needed on a parallel track just 50 metres away. I was a good boy, though, and retraced my route rather than cutting through the forest.
Another great MTBO area, another well-planned course.
Update: My GPS was found by Lasse Brun’s Mum. Many thanks to her for making my evening.
Well I’ve made it and am now waiting in Copenhagen Airport for my lift over to Sweden after a very early flight out of Stansted. The Pre Season European Training Camp with 150 of the best MTBO riders in the world kicks off tonight with a sprint in the dark which should be interesting, but not as interesting as another race than jumped out of the schedule, a supersprint : 1.7km with 15 controls, sounds great. Assuming I get a wifi connection I will try to blog everyday whilst at the camp, and perhaps post a few photos and map extracts.
