It was with trepidation that we queued for check in at the BA desk in Manchester as fellow team mate Chris BB was led away by two officials following a scan of his bike bag. In the end the rest of us checked in fine (although you never know what small print in the baggage allowances you may have missed for the bikes, which always brings worries of extra charges at the airport). We then decided that having a coffee was a better way to kill time, while waiting for him to have the rubber glove treatment, than worry about where he had been taken.
Thirty minutes later, a sheepish Chris returned with an official bit of paper saying his gas cartridges were actually OK and it was only his bike that had had an intimate examination!
Our plane today was dinky, a Dornia with only room for 30 passangers, my hand luggage only just fitting in the overhead lockers.
The GB team for this years training camp is much bigger, with lots of new faces all going out to gain valuable international experience in 4 days of intensive mountain bike orienteering.
Joining the already experienced Emily Benham and Chris Brand Barker are Dan Mathers, Mark Mc Phillips, Alan Hartley and Steph Fountain, oh, and me….
Staying in an Army barracks in Skive in Northern Denmark, we will be racing and training in the various MTBO distance formats, plus some special training exercises to concentrate the mind on various techniques. We even have a middle distance race at night which will be fun.
http://orienteering.org/athlete-of-the-month/
Ive just put my entry in for this popular event, held over the first May Bank Holiday weekend just down the road at Catton Park. The 6 hour enduro is a ‘parc ferme’ meaning I will have to have all my food, drink and spares in a box in the pit area, but this wont be too much of a problem, being used to 3-6 hour mountain bike orienteering challenges where you have to be independent anyway, its just a case of balancing the carried weight against the number of stops. Riders compete solo or in pairs.
