Category: Mountain Biking

We arrived in Malham on Friday afternoon where I stayed in the youth hostel so I could get an early start as we were flying out to France on holiday from Liverpool Airport on Saturday early evening. After a nice walk up Gordale Scar we ran for the car as a huge thunderstorm  cascaded water everywhere and nicely wetted the ground for the Trailquest the following day, organised as part of the Malham Show. The show is a traditional country show with everything from punch and judy to livestock competitions, classic tractors to cake weight guessing.
I got first start, and taking note of the very strong prevailing wind decided to head out west first. I wobbled on the first checkpoint as it was marked in the wrong place on the map but the control description, ‘ford’, picked me up and I perhaps only lost 30 secs. There was then that inevitable gruelling climb out of Malham village up onto the high moor that characterises this picturesque area.

Now time for my rant…..
 
I never found #14, a 30 pointer on a non existent track junction but on an obvious bend. According to my GPS I spent 12 mins cycling, then running up and down the track hunting for it, navigating using the farm, contours, tracks etc to no avail. I eventually gave it up as a lost cause when 3 further people turned up and couldn’t find it either. Apparently it was hidden on a wall some 50 metres from the track when a few eventually found it.
Fighting the headwind I carried on very annoyed. #18 was a little hidden #10 was ok but even using an ultra-safe approach to #12 climbing from the north I spent 10 mins hunting around trying to find it. By this time I was really really angry. Id spent the best part of £100 to get to and enter the event and had dragged the family up to a very soggy show to take part in for me a very important decider round of a national trailquest series which I was at that point leading. To lose 22 mins in a 4 hour race is annoying if everyone is in the same boat but many competitors headed East first and due to the blowy wet conditions never made it round to the two dodgy controls.
I nearly chucked in the towel and headed back but the scenery and riding was good so I carried on. My original route round #26 ,#19 and back through #22 or #50 was now going to be very tight so I decided to just hoover up everything I could get to on the way back in a very inefficient manner and finished 13 mins early.
I ended up 11th, way off the pace but splits show only Liam Corner 6th was the only other in the top placings to suffer the dodgy controls. Bryan Singleton did very well on the vets to get round my intended loop in the time available after having similar problems to me, but his fitness on the hills is just awesome.
So should I put it down to experience and just think bad luck, No ! It is a national series, controls should be fair for all competitors. There is no explanation or apology on the website – a week later just a set of skewed results that will be used in a national league that for me has just lost all credibility. It might sound like sour grapes because of my result, but I would be having a major moan even if I had won the event in fact packing the car up later I saw many people searching round Malham trying to find #1 which was marked incorrectly on the map all looking very frustrated.

Trailquesting in general has always had a bad press from Orienteers due to inaccurate maps and poorly placed controls but it is possible to put on consistant fair events using the quality of mapping available from the OS with some corrections if needed, which Dark and White, NYMBO, XCC and Open 5, manage to do most of the time.
There is a golden rule in adventure racing and trailquest organising which is only plan and put out controls using the race map and don’t hide them.

If I’m available I will goto this years AGM and support the TCA chairman who I know has been trying to get the quality of controls placement better for several years and see if a consensus can be reached on a way forward in reducing the number of mistakes to a minimum. We also need a consistent approach when mistakes do happen so that competitors do not feel so angry which I know from chatting to others I’m not the only one on this occasion.

Rant over

By the way Malham is a beautiful place to visit and I gather that the Malham show is well worth a visit if you are in the dales over the bank holiday weekend next year.

results available at http://www.malhamdale.com/Malham09.txt

With the rest of the team off site seeing in Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea on the rest day at the World MTBO Champs I was booked by the TCA and British Orienteering onto  the IOF advisers course. This 4 hour course together with the reams of rules, guidelines and appendixes I will receive when I get home qualifies me to  become an advisor / controller on major international events. The course covered all the current mapping and planning guidelines plus all the out of forest stuff from accommodation to medal ceremonies. The course was useful for several reasons. One is that someone in the UK is now fully up to date with international rules and guidelines which is paramount to the development of the domestic sport. Two I will possibly get invited to advise on a future World Ranking Event which means foreign travel and the chance to absorb other countries ways of running events, again valuable for UK MTBO development.
Full IOF rules and guidelines are available at http://www.orienteering.org

The event was held at Eshtaol Forest a 20 min drive from the event centre. The area was steeper, and even drier than the other days, with a less dense track network of larger tracks and paths. All were extremely dusty and gravelly causing the trees to have a grey almost silver appearance and were very dangerous particularly on the corners with many riders having ‘moments’ and even falls.
Unfortunately as I had not qualified for the long final I watched Andy and the girls compete in their finals before getting kitted up in the 36 degree heat to head out for my B final race which was to be over the same course that the Women had used earlier. It had been decided if Bryan or myself were beaten by any British girls we were to receive a face full of hummus, and I secretly wanted to see if I could beat the time of Christine Schaffner (91.11) the recently crowned World Champion.
I started strongly picking a very fast loose decent down to #1 and then rode cleanly for most of the course only making one error and a suspect route choice where I rode through an olive grove and got scratched to pieces.
I caught Bryan about half way round and gave it everything trying to pull away, but he managed to stay in touch.

I crossed the line in a right state of exhaustion and dehydration after about 91 mins very pleased but what about the seconds. Well my 91.21 just wasn’t quite enough to beat Christine but I’m happy there is just one women in the world who can beat me !
After a quick trip back to the event centre to pack away the bikes ready for the trip home we were back to the swimming pool which formed the finish for the long race for the event banquet and prize giving, culminating in a midnight swim and various alcholol induced antics.

MTBO WOC 2009

My Gallery of photos taken at the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships, Israel 2009

The sprints were held at Neot Kdumim, again near to the event centre. I had drawn a very late start just before the red ‘top 10’ group and was hoping for a good result if I could get pulled along as they came past me. The first couple of controls were easy and I quickly got into the map and then nailed # 3,4,5 but got distracted by the eventual winner Adrian Jackson as he came through on the way to #2 and picked a  duff route choice to #6 , perhaps losing 1 min or so. I then rode really well and started to realise that cutting through carrying the bike off track was an option. I really blasted the last big hill and cut across the open to # where I was caught by Lasse (2nd place) and we both took a daft short cut down some terraced farm land. Lasse didn’t hesitate and jumped 2 metres off a wall, bike in hand. I stopped, saw no alternative and jumped too. I pulled back ahead slightly with another carried shortcut and I sprinted up to the finish to take 44th place just 30 secs off some world ranking points and 6 mins down on the winner, my best international result to date.

The sun was high in the sky at 2.30pm as we left our accomodation to cycle up  to the relay assembly area. The cool breeze and shade near the finish gave a false sense of security the start line being out in the full glare of the sun as we lined up Le Mans style for the sprint to our bikes. Riding first for Team GB I got a cracking start and stayed in the top 3 for the first couple of controls before the strength and speed of the other athletes told and I was overtaken on the next hill by the pack. I stayed in touch through the next couple but lost them when I fluffed a punch and had to go back for it. I then made one bad error taking the wrong single track forcing a climb back up to the control and putting me well down. A bonkers decent down a rocky single track took us down to the TV cameras and another little mistake before I made another huge route choice error. Pulling myself together I started to reel back in the teams in front, passing the Japanese just after the spectator and a small pack in an intricate path network. I gave it all ip the last hill and handed over to Andy Conn. Andy had a solid ride which brought us up a few places. Brian Singleton on anchor was going well before a huge crash saw him lose a few places, so a disappointing result for the mens team.
After the prize giving at the assembly area the mens team however won the race for dinner beating all the other teams back to the event centre. Maybe  this could be a new dicipline next year