Mountain
Biking
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After a brief tryout in 2002, I decided to enter a few Trailquests. These events, also known as Mountain Bike Orienteering, last from a couple of hours to all day and even span several days at International level. Karen came along on the first event and had a great day but prefers to keep her cycling on a non-competitive basis so now I either ride on my own or with Dave B, long time friend and mad MTB mate. We compete in the Veteran class, a long standing cycling term which means people over 40! Only a few years to go and we'll be 'Supervets', now there's something to look forward to ... We ride in events organised by NYMBO / EBOR, mostly in the North York Moors although they are spreading out to the Pennines as well. They've joined up with the CLOK club for a few events in the last couple of years, which has also widened the range of events open to us. In a season, most events are 2 hours, occasionally there's a 3 or 4 hour event and often a round of the National series, which tends to be 5 hours and leaves us feeling dead for about 5 days afterwards. Events mostly require 30 checkpoints to be found in the time limit, between 5 and 30 points for each checkpoint and points lost if you exceed the time limit. Sometimes the route is pre-planned but usually you pick your own way around the checkpoints, not many people get all 30. We enjoy the riding, but try not to be too serious about the results, after all we don't train enough to be really good and there are too many pints of beer waiting to be drunk ... It's a great experience, the people are good and the riding is usually brilliant, come along and have a go. Here's my league results for the last few years, comments on each season are a bit further down the page.
Visit one of the following websites and look for more details North
Yorkshire Mountain Bike Orienteers at www.nymbo.org.uk Also try these for info on cycling and general orienteering Trail Cyclists Association (TCA) or the British Orienteering Federation
18th May A quick call to Tim at www.tftuned.com saw a replacement U-Turn adjuster, a new cassette from www.chainreaction.com and a couple of hours with cleaners and grease saw the bike something like normal and missing it's squeak, a bit like Sir Thomas Thom of Appledore...
12th April Wykeham Forest for April, Dave B couldn't get there so I went on my own. Water is what I remember most, forest tracks covered in mud and water, I haven't got so wet and muddy in ages. It was a great fun ride, unfortunately I got lost in the first 5 minutes and then followed someone who was even more lost than me. After 15 minutes, I'd got my bearings properly sorted and started to get some points. The event was in 2 parts, get as many checkpoints on map one then back to base for the second map. It's a new format and it seemed to work well.
The finish was a bit exciting on a gravelled car park, I
don't think anyone fell off but it was a bit touch and go for those of
us finishing with only seconds to spare. 12th May The May ride was based in Nidderdale, lots of rolling hills and long bridleways. There were some problems with navigation, including missing signposts, unhelpful farmers, re-directed permissive paths and some dodgy map reading. However, it was a great day out even though I didn't get a good score, still not fit enough for a 4 hour event.
2006 - 29th April The second ride of the year was at Great Langdale, based around the village hall and riding up into Langdale Forest. Rain in the morning on the drive up there, sunny but with a biting cold Northerly wind during the ride, a great day was had by most. We had a good ride, thoroughly enjoyable, not too much mud, great scenery and only a little blood... The next event is at Catterick on Saturday May 27th, details on the EBOR website. We'll be missing the next couple of events due to other commitments.
31st March The first ride on Saturday 25th March was the first warm day for a while, although it followed a couple of very wet days making the wolds mud and clay very sticky, definitely a good day for narrow tyres and riding the roads as much as possble. It was a good day out but Dave B's tyres were too good at collecting mud and we were both pretty tired by the end of it.
24th March The first ride of the season is a 4 hour event setting off from market Weighton School, it's about 5 minutes ride from our house so I guess I ought to be there... 2005 - 23 October Since June,I just haven't managed to get to an event, health problems and other commitments have just made it impossible. I miss getting out to the moors for a days riding and 2006 is going to be different, the winter fitness campaign starts here... 4th June After missing a couple of events for health reasons, I finally got to compete in another event, at Cropton Forest near Pickering in North Yorkshire. After a few rain showers on the drive up to the start, the afternoon event was warm and sunny, a pleasant ride even though I struggled a bit after a long lay off. The bridleways and fire breaks were rideable, the tracks through the trees were soggy and difficult on foot never mind on the bike. I'm still picking thorns out after landing on a gorse bush whilst trying to negotiate a very stick track without hitting any trees. Good points because no-one got real high scores, so a successful and enjoyable ride, better than I hoped for. 10th March The season started in February, with a 3 hour ride at Knayton in the North York Moors, just North of Thirsk. Pouring rain and snow on the way up there wasn't exactly inspiring, especially knowing Dave B was at home packing for a weeks holiday in Tunisia. Still, Karen & I will be heading for Fuerteventura next week, something to look forward to whilst the snow is falling here. 6 Checkpoints where cancelled because of the snow on Arden Great Moor, so only 24 to get round .. hmm. In the end it was a good ride, especially as I avoided the highest moors, knowing I wouldn't get all round the course anyway. By heading East of the A19 and then across for the checkpoints at the West side, I avoided the worst of the weather, although it was still pretty wet and took around an hour to get the feeling back in my toes. I'm not sure which bit of this was fun really, although I'm sure it'll get better as the weather improves later in the year. 2004 wasn't a great season for results, but we had a couple of good rides, although Dave P. only managed 6 events in total, Dave B did rather less. Here's a couple of pictures from the July event, cold, wet and windy, mud everywhere. A bit too tired to take pictures after the event.
Pictures and text are copyright © Dave & Karen Petty- All Rights Reserved, please don't copy anything without our permission. Thanks, D & K. |
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visitors to the site since 18th May 2003