Steve Willis planned an excellent weekend with 2 great events, here’s his report and the results. As always please get in touch with any comments or results corrections.

Saturday Report
Everyone came back safely despite a few mechanicals. It was a tough day with lots of climbing but plenty of route choice and not too hot.
It was close between Tom Gibbs and Andy Conn who were only 12 points apart while leading M50 and M60 respectively very comfortably. Si Gittings had a 1 point lead over James Chilcott while Sue Booth is the lady to beat tomorrow. Mike Hayward has 50 points more than Sheila Pearce in the ebike category
There were some dodgy looking routes which I’ve checked on Maprun but can now appreciate that it was just some confusing terrain and careless map reading – nobody was trying to find short cuts so no points reductions.
I hadn’t anticipated 9 riders using the road to Langthwaite to avoid the climb up Fremington Edge so you may find a control on that awkward bridleway by the river next time. A few riders got lost around Booze and the quarry in the top corner of the Stang Forest caused problems. (Kudos to Bob Cherry who made it down the toughest bridleway on the map down the edge of the forest and still had the 3rd best score on the day). I was intrigued with Michael & Tim’s route between 25 & 18 and impressed with Sion’s ability to follow the designated bridleway between 25 and 29. (I’ve never been brave enough to try).
Thanks to Will Morris and Richard Coates (the Barningham and Arkengarthdale keepers) for welcoming us and allowing us to use their private estate tracks – some of them for the first time! (I wonder if we will still be allowed to use them in future if the Hope Windfarm goes ahead)!!

Thanks also to Tim for an excellent map and his guidance during the planning process. As well as Stuart and Brenda at the brilliant DBC plus Clare Brown for allowing us to camp and park in her hay meadow.

Sunday Report
Tom Gibbs cleared up in just over 4 hours to win overall and top M50. Sue Booth rode well again to finish as the top scoring lady. Andy Conn was 2nd but top M60, David Day won M70 while Claire & David were the top mixed pair. Congratulations to Chris Goodwin who scored 410 points at his first event riding with his dad. Mike Hayward and Sheila Pearce both scored well again in the ebike category. The combined scores are on the News page.

I thoroughly enjoyed checking all of these bridleways again earlier this summer as it’s such a beautiful area, Thanks for the positive comments when you finished despite some more dodgy route choices. Preston Moor caused problems again this time and I’ve reported the ‘footpath’ sign on the bridleway south of #24 which is confusing. Unfortunately we’ve had to deduct points from 3 riders for using tracks which were clearly marked as out of bounds at #13 and #3 as well as one rider who went off the map to get to #21.

Thanks to the keepers on Grinton, Bolton and Preston Moors keepers for welcoming us while using the public bridleways and allowing us to use their private estate tracks. Thanks again to the Dales Bike Centre for making us welcome and providing excellent refreshments and prizes.
Hope to see you at another NYMBO event this year.

Saturday MapRun Tracks

Saturday Results

Sunday MapRun Tracks

Sunday Results

Everyone back safely despite a few mechanicals. It was a tough day with lots of climbing but plenty of route choice and not too hot.

It’s close between Tom Gibbs and Andy Conn who are only 12 points apart but winning M50 and M60 respectively very comfortably. Si Gittings has a 1 point lead over James Chilcott while Sue Booth is the lady to beat tomorrow.

You can see the provisional results and rider routes on MapRun here.

Here are all the details you need for this weekend’s Swaledale events.

The camping area, the start locations and the finish are all shown on the map. The finish is in the same location on each day.

Saturday & Sunday
Registration 0915 – 1015 | Starts 0930 – 1030 | 4 hour course

Both courses are available for download on MapRun:

select event / UK / North Yorkshire / NYMBO / Summer 26
Swaledale North 2025 (yes, this is the correct course!!)
Swaledale South 2026

It’s not going to be as hot on Saturday and Sunday as it has been in the previous few days – however we suggest every rider takes at least 2 litres of water. This is very little on the fells and we can’t provide water en-route. Don’t forget suncream along with your emergency blanket, whistle and first aid kit.

The DBC cafe is open 9am – 5pm both days plus England v Norway World Cup football on live at 10pm Saturday

Blank course maps in the previous post, see you at the weekend!

Here are both the course area maps for the NYMBO events on Saturday and Sunday. Discounted entries close midnight Monday and online entries close on Thursday. There may be some limited EOD options.

MapRun download details and any other event information will be ready later this week!

Discounted entries until midnight Monday July 6th

Online entries open until midnight Thursday July 9th

Camping, campervans and caravans all welcome at the DBC – no booking in advance required – you can pay as part of your BMBO entry or at registration. £10 pp pn. Glamping pods and bunkhouse pods available via the DBC website. Free refreshments after your ride. Toilets, bike wash and cafe.

Steve Willis has been hard at work planning this year’s Swaledale weekend – and after the cancellation of the first day last year we’ll all be hoping for more clement weather like this photo for our July weekend. Steve has negotiated access to many of the tracks that are only available to ride as part of our events on the weekend – the terrain is always challenging (especially at the start) but the rewards are incredible!

Discounted entries until midnight Monday July 6th

Online entries open until midnight Thursday July 9th

Camping, campervans and caravans all welcome at the DBC – no booking in advance required – you can pay as part of your BMBO entry or at registration. £10 pp pn.

Glamping pods and bunkhouse pods available via the DBC website

Free refreshments after your ride. Toilets, bike wash and cafe

More details to follow over the next 2 weeks!

It was a blustery day in the Yorkshire Wolds which made some of the headwinds on the tops particularly hardgoing. Of course, that did give the contrasting benefit of a tailwind at times too! David Day planned an excellent and fast course for us in an area we don’t usually visit and the Yorkshire Cycling Festival venue gave us a few EOD riders too (as well as a number of lost Audax riders attempting to register with us!)

You can see all of the provisional results and tracks on MapRun here

Most riders finished well within the allocated 3 hours, but a couple will need their scores adjusted for the final results. Do get in touch if you have any controls missing and you’ve not been able to do a ‘HITMO’ adjustment yourself.

For Garmin device users, you may have noticed that there are now 2 options for Garmin results – “punches” (the existing method) and “tracks” (for newer devices) – “Punches” worked fine for me but do try the alternative if you have any problems.

The closed road signs for the start/finish locations were mentioned on the website instructions I realise that we should have mentioned that at registration too! Remote locations aren’t ideal but for an event like this it was the only way to make sure it was safe.

Finish Line

The download for tomorrow’s event is now available!

The mobile 5G signal strength is not great at the Showground. Please make sure to download the MapRun course before you set off.

MapRun download is now ready in the usual location, QR code below
select event / UK / North Yorkshire / NYMBO / Summer 26

Registration 0915 – 1015 | Starts 0930 – 1030 | 3 hour course

Parking and Registration is at the showground and it’s a short ride to the start (see map)

NB: The Cowlam bottom road (the one that the start is on) has road closed signs all over it. This is for road patching but it’s only happening on weekdays and is easy to pass on a bike. Thanks to Jon for his recce of the course.

Limited entry on the day available for ~15 riders – £15/adult rider.

Here’s the blank course map for the Yorkshire Wolds event on Saturday June 13th. All details in the previous post.

Registration and parking is at the Showground Event Centre where you will receive your map. Then it’s a short ride to the start/finish locations.

Our next event is in the Yorkshire Wolds on Saturday 13th June and will be based at the Driffield Showground as part of the Yorkshire Cycle Festival [moved from it’s previous home at York Knavesmire].

The festival takes place over the whole weekend, camping is available via their website booking system. Food & drink stalls at the Showground.

Registration 0915 – 1015 | Starts 0930 – 1030 | 3 hour course | Course map to follow

Parking is at the Showground YO25 9FB, follow marshal’s directions/NYMBO signs. Registration will be in the Rix Pavilion. Start & finish are ~ 1km ride north from the Showground via a bridge to avoid crossing the busy A166 (see map picture)

The area north of Driffield consists of typical Wolds terrain with dry bridleways on chalk uplands with grassy valleys; the roads are generally quiet, 2 ‘B’ roads cross the competition area but courses are planned to avoid riding them.

As usual we will be using MapRun to validate the 30 controls, always best to download the course from the MapRun library, just before the event. There is uncertain wifi at the Showground so best to do this at home. As usual, we’ll update the website when the map is ready for download.

The consolidated results from Saturday’s event are here. (Updated: 12/05/26 20:58)

If you want to see the routes everyone took then you can look on MapRun here

I hope you all enjoyed your rides and wasn’t it great to back in Dalby again, sadly 10 years since we last went there and the amount of map changes required shows how much the forest changes over time.

First of all, thank you for Steve and Andrea Foster for planning this event last year and Steve for updating it when we finally (last week) got permission, I thought the course was challenging and even managed to defeat our new M60 Mr Conn, lesser mortals even with e-bikes were almost 100 points behind. Thanks also go to Mr Conn for his suggested map updates which he spotted from the blank map, I am aware some of the tracks could do with a further update so any constructive comments greatly received so we can make it better for future events.

Thanks also go to Steve Willis and Sheila Pierce for manning registration and the car park, to Jon Purdy for valiantly manning the start and finish and to the team in Fox and Rabbit for their excellent hospitality and free use of their car park.

The overall winner (and first M60 ) was Andy Conn with 501 points, first lady (and first in her age class) was Jill Ellison with 288 points, first M50 was Carl Vincent with 405 points, First M70 was David Day with 306 points. First Generation pair were Ewan and Rik Thompson with 285 points with the Ogles not far behind. Carmen Elphick was First W50 with 229 points. First E-Bike was Dennis Jaques with 430 points, who clearly knows how to coax his battery unlike Steve, on the red when he finished, Willis who was worried about it going flat on the gentle cool down to the pub.

event centre

As mentioned above the map needed much alteration from the 2016 map and if you spot any tracks you think need tweaking please let me know, also apologies for control 6 that was on a different junction on maprun to the map, so far only Mark Rowley has asked for this to be added ( Andy Conn’s route took him through both junctions) but if you feel you went through control 6 and it hasn’t registered please let me know , but I will check your track.

A couple of minor gripes, can we please make sure we start before 10:30, as it impacts the start team, we are going to implement a late start penalty of a hard start at 10:40 which means your start time will be 10:40 unless the organiser on the day agrees otherwise. Also when you try to get the control that hasn’t registered please check on the map and descriptions that you actually visited the control and didn’t turn round to early , I check all those with adjustments and have declined one this time as their track shows they turned straight down the red at control 11 rather than going to half way between the red junctions.

Our next event is from the Driffield bike show on the 13th June as part of the Yorkshire Bike Rally (moved from the York Knavesmire) and again there is a remote start/finish do avoid racing over the bypass. David Day has planned an excellent course, but we could do with a bit of help on the day with the start and finish any volunteers greatly appreciated.

Also given how much we enjoyed Dalby it would be great to get in the forests again but their fees end up being about £4 per person , so we would need to increase entry slightly ( £1-£2) please can you advise if this would deter you, and also comment if you think this is a brilliant idea.

Next event is June 13th at Driffield Show Ground in the Yorkshire Wolds – enter here