After a few months break the British MTBO scene is now in full swing again with not only racing at Sherwood Pines this weekend but a double header of Mountain Bike Orienteering in the Lake District next weekend.
I arrived fairly early to help organiser and planner Killian with the Sportident timing which meant I got a late start which Killian assured me would be beneficial as many leaves had fallen obscuring the tracks over the last few days.
I started strongly certainly helped by recognising many of the tracks having ridden at the Sherwood Pines centre many times, Dark and White challenges, British and Midland XC races and recreational riding over the years. The course on two maps wound its way around the area and was characterised by long route choice legs. I had a fairly clean ride on the first map, just hesitating at a couple of unmarked tracks and a wobble on number 8 but was pleased to be still going strong at map changeover, number 16. I promptly fluffed number 18 not looking at the map enough but then noticed John Houlihan in the distance on the way to the next. I slowly wound him in till I eventually caught him at number 22 with a great standing punch which saw me pull away. We then pretty much raced head to head till the finish, though unfortu
nately losing time at number 24 after missing the indistinct track the control was on.
John beat me into the finish by a few seconds after I tried to take a short cut through some boulders, muppet!
Downloading I was pleased with 4th, just 8 secs down on 3rd and 30 secs down on 2nd , though I always seem to be on the wrong side of these tight results not making the podium.
It was a great event by Killian, Sherwood Pines delivering huge smiles as always from the fast singletracks on offer. It was also good to see lots of newbies but I think its probably time we have another look at what’s on offer for those new to the sport so we do not get so many retirals.
results available here, though I will get some splits up when I get the kit back from Killian.
http://www.bmbo.org.uk/images/event/a77e489b27733c94bb8169d73482015b.pdf
http://www.splitsbrowser.org.uk/splitsgraph.php?eventId=4260
Will be interesting to see the splits as we took different routes for a good third of the legs.
Hi,
just wondering if there is/will be a routegadget available for this event? I’d love to compare my route with others’..
Joachim
Ill try and get the files I need from Killian, but it might be a few days….
that’s cool 🙂 no rush, thanks for your efforts!
I was going to ask where Routegadget was, but someone else has done that already! Hope you can get the relevant files from Killian.
As for getting more new people into the sport, this would have been a great event for them, if it had had (a) more advertising, and (b) a course that would have taken them perhaps 45-60 mins.
Anyway, it was fun, I’m looking forward to my next MTBO race…
Cheers, Martin.
Cool splits on Splitsbrowser Thanks.
route choice wise.
5 my northen route was a bit quicker than your middle but I think the southern is probobly best but I never saw that till afterwards.
7 my sothern route was slower.
13 your left was slower than my back on the road.
15 your straight was better than my southern.
21 my inital west then north was not good.
Your 2 mistakes cost more than mine (4, 8, 14)
Looks like you started quicker then slowed compared to me.