MTBO and Dark and White -Sheffield

Nov 18, 2012

Riders; Pete Crawforth & Andy Douglas

A great weekend of getting lost on a bike around Sheffield.

The first event of the weekend saw the final round of this years British Mountain Bike Orienteering come to the delightful little suburb of Bowdon Howsteads just on the outskirts  of Sheffield. Race organizer Killian managed to somehow fit in a great circuit into a tiny area that tested everyone’s fitness and navigation skills.  This being my second ever MTBO style event my only aim was to do one better than first attempt and actually finish!  During MTBO races the control points need to be collected in a specific order, with any  missed controls resulting in a void run.

Andy showed us how it was all done with a super fast time of 55 minutes 49. Plus wrapping up the season with an overall league victory in the national M21 category.

My attempt left a lot to be desired, I am very pleased I did managed to collect all the points and finish. However my ride time of 89:09 and 3+ extra km over Andys route shows my MTBO navigation skills need to improve.

Great event though, many thanks to Killian and the rest of the the organizers for all their effort.
Just a shame that some of the locals woke up after the race had finished and decided to set fire to some of the controls!

results and a report can be found here and here

Sunday saw the second round of the winter Dark and White trailquest series also come to Sheffield.  Following a format I am becoming a lot more comfortable with requires each rider to collect as many points as possible in any order and return within the 3 hour time limit.  The distances between the control points are much further than that used during MTBO events and the navigation follows standard OS style maps.

My ride went largely without any issues, apart from riding past a control that was placed half way up a climb and I had decided to head straight to the top and over the other side. I was pretty pleased with my route choice, heading for the highest value most distributed controls first and leaving the option to get as many of the closer to home points before the time ran out.  Two big significant climbs near the end of my run hurt a lot but I now feel I have the strength in my legs to match my ambitious route choices. Finishing with only a few seconds to spare is always the ideal way to end these races and overall I’m very pleased with finishing 3rd, my highest finish in one of the standard trailquest day events.

results and splits

Thats what weekends are all about!

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