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MTBO World Cup 2010, Teolo, Italy

Team GB arrived in Italy to overcast skies and the promise of torrential ran over the weekend. After frantic bike building and unpacking at our hotel it was off to try and tune into the model event terrain. After a fast descent to the valley floor from Teolo we were into the terraced vineyards the area is famous for, before we came to our start area: surprise, surprise, a farm that grew grapes.

The model area was all farmland with major grass tracks criss-crossing the terraces on the vineyards. However, we had been given permission to ride off track between the vines. This made route choice more interesting, and navigation more of a challenge. The vine rows can only be ridden in one direction, though, which tends to be with the contours. A mix of quiet country lanes and tracks, plus a healthy dose of climb, completed our recce of the area before the rain came down. Four hours later, following dinner and a team leaders meeting, the rain has still not not stopped meaning the sprint maybe particularly sticky tomorrow.

I have a fairly late start, which normally would be an advantage, but tomorrow, I’m not so sure.

World Cup Mountain Bike Orienteering  http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/

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Stodge meets Boris Johnson!

I spent today at Pozzoni’s London office before travelling to Italy for the MTBO World Cup. Being such a lovely evening (and with some time on my hands), I decided to walk back from the office on Old Street in Clerkenwell towards the station. Walking up Clerkenwell Road I was taken aback by the sheer number of cyclists. Streaming away from the traffic lights, where many had stood track-standing their fixies, there were simply more bikes than cars. As I continued to walk, the mini pelotons of commuters did not diminish. There were lots and lots of fixies and not just the previous trend for old hacks. There were some gorgeous bikes going past with striking colour schemes, tiny narrow bars and the ubiquitous single brake lever. Certainly, along Clerkenwell Road there were a lot of very cool people riding bikes that said, “Look at me,” with individuality being the trend.

Very noticeable, too, were the number of Barclays TFL hire bikes in use, with their high intensity flashing LEDs.

Boris JohnsonWalking along, deciding that I would blog about this phenomenon on the way home on the train, I was gobsmacked to see the person many would argue is partly responsible for this explosion of cycling in our capital, London Mayor, Boris Johnson coming out of an office, helmet on, bike in hand. I could not resist saying, “Hello” and congratulating him on the TFL hire bikes. He even posed for a photo for me. It was so refreshing to see a major public figure on a bike on a normal street, not a body guard in sight.

So, thanks Boris, ride on!

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Fomby Sands

A 600 mile weekend also brought a foot orienteering race at Formby Sands near Liverpool on Sunday following the MTBO in Devon of the Saturday.

Cath and I love sand dune events and Formby is probably our closest so we decided to take the trip north. Being a round of the Compass Sport Cup the event was well attended with a good atmosphere at the assembly area before a fairly long walk to the start overlooking footballers mansions, ugly new fake Victoriana brick piles with high walls and lots of security cameras.

With the final round of the MTBO World Cup a week later I started determined not to run flat out and to just enjoy the run, concentrate on the nav and not make any mistakes. To many times recently I have paid for a good running result with very sore legs for days later and I couldn’t afford to do that this time.

I started steadily getting good flow through the controls. I had a 10 second wobble on number 8 whilst I worked out the undergrowth marked on the map was in fact the world’s largest nettle patch and I really was not going to be running through any of it. Number 9 was a significant tree which didn’t seem obvious running in and I didn’t have an accurate enough line really but luckily I spotted the flag peeking out from behind a bush so didn’t lose any time. Then came my only mistake. Navigating perfectly to 11 I was distracted by 4 runners going into another control nearby and diverted to it assuming I was wrong and they were right. Shame they were off to another control and were on a different course. I went back to my original route in and nailed it but had lost about a minute, daft !

On the way to 15 I caught sight of Liam Corner in the distance (very handy on his mountain bike too but I have not actually managed to race against him yet). The red mist descended and I put the hammer down. I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I was enjoying myself. I got a better route into 15 avoiding the nettles punching just before him and then legged it. It took me a couple of controls to drop him but the effort put me in a daft position on the way to 18. Running along the vague track I had no idea how far I had come along it and was starting to think I was going to have a big mistake. Luckily after a wobble on an earlier track junction I realised where I was, picking up a contour on the track and had no trouble with it in the end but it was not a clever thing to do. I backed off a little and cruised through the last couple to the finish having had a great time.

I even happier when I saw the results – 5th, taking a few ‘famous’ scalps and only beaten by a handful of young elites.

results at http://www.meroc.co.uk/FormbyResults/FormbyCSCTResults/index.html

Holly, Cath and I then  visited the National Trust reserve we had so recently run through, going down to the beach and looking for the Red Squirrels the area is famous for, but were disappointed to hear most of them had been wiped out by squirrel pox! Together with coastal erosion of 4m per year Formby Sands is an area really under pressure. More details at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-formby-2

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Preview – World Cup MTBO 2010 – Italy

Friday will see a  team of British riders arriving in Teolo, near Venice for the last rounds of this years IOF Mountain Bike Orienteering World Cup series.
The organisers have had problems with storm damaged forests forcing them to reschedule some of the events in new areas, but the races are:

Saturday – Sprint
Sunday – Middle distance
Monday – Mixed relays.

The British team for the event contains some new blood, Ifor Powell and Steph Fountain. Steph and Ifor are both endurance specialists, Ifor getting a good position at this years British 24hr MTB champs and Steph ‘fresh’ from trans Wales:

Men
Mark Stodgell, Ifor Powell (debut), Andrew Windrum & Mark Hayman
Women
Emily Benham, Helen Clayton, Lucy Harris, Steph Fountain (debut)

keep up to date here or at http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/

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Woodbury Common – MTBO

Woodbury Common near Exeter, famous for its Royal Marine Commando training grounds, is quite a hike down from Staffordshire, but not so far from my roots in Taunton so I decided to take trip south for Devon’s first MTBO event.

The area is already famous locally for  mountain biking and has some great trails.

Covering most of a piece of A3 at 1:15000, the area is a huge with a good path network criss-crossing a rolling landscape of open heathland and woods.

I had decided on a strategy of really attacking the climbs but to concentrate on technique and make as few mistakes as possible. I had to avoid several camouflaged, gun-carrying Marines on the way to number 1, and a couple of them seemed quite intimidated with me piling down the track towards them which seemed quite strange with them being the ones carrying the SA8Os!

The first few controls criss-crossed the same area a few times before a very fast descent off the heathland and into the forest where we had our first encounters with some of the commando course, calling for bike on shoulder climbing up slippery banks.

Unfortunately, a misplaced and a stolen control at this point interrupted my flow some what as I phaffed around, eventually finding one on an unmarked junction a bit further along, but the missing one seemed to have just disappeared. Some more climbs followed before we came back across the map for the sting in the tail to the last control. The route choice was a up and round or a short dash across a difficult to ride track. I felt even if I had to run with the bike the shorter route would be better, but how wrong I was!

The difficult to ride track was actually a part of the Marine Commando challenge course. Battling through a muddy stream in a 6ft ditch, bike above my head, I opted to climb over the tunnel I came across as the bike wouldn’t fit. Eventually, I was faced with the exit and daylight above through a great big prickly gorse bush. I shoved the bike ahead of me, got it stuck and then head down just pushed my way through, dragging the bike after me.

I punched the last control and shouldered the bike up the steep climb towards the finish, where, after downloading, I pulled a big bit of gorse out of my helmet vents and my forehead!

Woodbury Common, although having a few too many bridleways to make course planning easy, is a great new addition to MTBO and other than the couple of misplaced controls I had a great time, with some really technical riding and route choices which made me think.

Thanks to Nigel Benham and Devon for their first foray into MTBO, lets hope QO and BOK can now follow in their footsteps to create a SW league with Wim, WSX and SARUM clubs.

note: although the results are now published they are a little misleading as indicated in the planners and organisers comments. I didn’t mispunch, just didn’t find a control that was in the wrong place as did most of the other mp’s except for two mechanical retirees mixed in ! Ive had a good peruse of the splits and was very pleased with most of the times, difficult to say how much time people lost on the controls in the wrong place/stolen but I think I had a lead of about 20 mins. A good day at the office ! 
http://www.orienteeringindevon.org.uk/devonoc/woodburyMTBO10.html

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Maize Maze is back!

The last event of the Walton Chasers Orienteering Club Domination Series 2010 was the sprint race and was held earlier this week. This year, as last, it was run at the National Forest Maize Maze as a trial event ready for a full scale sprint event in early October open to everyone.

The Domination Series conists of Score, Classic, Short/Middle and Sprint orienteering events plus a pursuit trail race. The idea is to find the best male and female in the club and the prize is highly sought after, points being awarded in a league system.

36 Chasers gathered in the failing light to do battle over less that a kilometre of straightline orientering but due to the nature of mazes the expected winning time was 13-15 minutes and the distances run more like 3 km.

As I was processing the results, I got an early start after wondering which shoes to wear (trainers or orienteering shoes) but in the end found the dob spiked Supra shoes perfect getting huge grip on the greasey surface with tight corners. I perhaps went off a bit too quick, making a few scrappy errors losing nearly a minute over the first half of the course.

I settled into it and soon succeeded in dropping the two teenagers hot on my heels getting into good control flow, planning ahead and making no more mistakes.

I hoovered up a few early starters towards the end and finished up on one of the bridges feeling fairly pleased with my run.

Some ominous clouds were then rolling in as we awaited everyone to download. With no power for splits printouts everyone was crowding round the live results screen to see how they had faired. I was winning by a clear margin but knew Mike Barnby was still out. As he came into download there was nervous tension until the result came up on screen. I’d beaten him by 4 secs – sweet !

Just as the last few finished and the collectors went out to get the controls in, the sky seemed to open and a deluge of rain came bucketing down, soaking Holly and I as we ran the few metres to the car.

This years open Maize Maze sprint challenge is to be held on Sat 9th Oct. It consists of two qualifiers in the afternoon and a final held after dark using head torches. Last years event was very successful but a little bird tells me the 2009 mens winner will not be able to defend his title so all is up for grabs.

Full details at http://www.walton-chasers.co.uk/events/2010/maize%20flier%202010.jpg

this years maze has a beach theme!

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Oldacre middle distance race

Partly caused by permissions problems, this year’s Walton Chasers September event was a middle distance race on Oldacre , a small semi open area to the west of the cross chase road forming a small valley.

Numbers attending the event were lowish – 160, partly due to other events and partly due to the fact it was branded as a middle race.

Many orienteer’s still seem to be avoiding these shorter distance events (saying they are not value to money or too far to travel for a short run) or ‘run up’ to longer courses not getting the idea of what a middle race is all about.

Middle distance racing is not just about the length of the course and the winning time, it is also to do with the characteristics of the course planning. A middle race is defined as having lots of short legs with less route choice but more intense navigation, particularly in the circle and lots of changes of direction. The whole experience is more intense and to my mind more exhilarating if you get it right and more frustrating if you get it wrong.

I’m sure Usain Bolt does not think, “Ooooh, I think I’ll do the 1500 metres for value for money” as he is travelling half way round the world to race, as it’s not worth the travel for just 10 seconds, and the different variations of orienteering should not, in my opinion, be treated any differently.

Sundays event was well planned, though on a map that still needs some updating, particularly with the vegetation screens and new detail exposed by the recent clearing, and I enjoyed it immensely. I deliberately did not run flat out, wanting to keep my legs in some semblance of order for the coming weeks bike training but had a good run with only a couple of small errors, managing to keep the control flow nice and quick, the secret to middle and short distance orienteering.

Those who have not tried the ‘newer’ forms of orienteering : urban, sprint, middle etc really should try them with an open mind and do them as they are intended to be run, those who do normally come away with a smile on their faces, surprised at how much they enjoyed them and ask when the next one is !

results available here

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Crapato Bicyclo !

I needed to keep the training up on my weeks family holiday in Brittany unlike last year when I was on my post season break. I tried to add a bike to our Flybe flights from Southampton but after 15 mins waiting on a 25ppm phone line and getting no answer I decided to try and hire one (with Flybe you can’t add a bike at the time of booking it seems). Given that France is a nation of cyclists and this region famous for its cycle touring, this proved more difficult than I thought. Many emails before I arrived eventually got me a general holiday equipment ‘location’ in Morgat to try but no email address.

I was disappointed to find on the day of our arrival Camaret Sur Mer that the tourist info office had not told me about a 50km MTB or ‘VTT’ race starting at the local SuperU that day. I jealously watched the riders come in past our gite on the way into the finish feeling frustrated I had not known that the French use the term VTT when I had been googling MTB!

The next day I took the car to Morgat and a very helpful hire shop owner kitted me out with the best town bike he had, though explaining it was the end of the season and it needed a bit of a service. He changed the seat for something slightly more sporty (a decision I was later to regret) and gave it the once over as I watched from a cafe on the other side of the square.

 

Over the next 5 days the bike and I enjoyed many kilometres of cliff top rides together as I discovered that this budget town model was in fact loaded with many high end features. The bottom bracket has a very advanced built in power meter, which gives a series of warning creaks on each down stroke as you reach maximum power. It also has a speed sensor built in that gives you feed back via a wobble if you reach speeds in excess of 40 km per hour. Good for me too was the way that it turns left much better than right, perfectly balanced for negotiating French roundabouts and the way the seat was designed in such a way that it became slowly more uncomfortable after 40 mins of riding enabling me not to need a watch to know when it was time to head for home.

Crapato Bicyclo – the name of the hire shop, priceless!

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