The consolidated results from Saturday’s event are here. We’re missing a couple of riders scores and if that’s you then you shoudl have received an email from Tim – please get in touch so that can be fixed.

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

There’s still time to enter the Dalby Forest event on Saturday – entry closes at midnight Thursday. Entry on the Day may be possible but online entry guarantees a map will be available.

The event centre is the Fox and Rabbit Inn at Lockton.

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

Parking:  is in the pub’s overflow carpark, please follow the signs!

Start & Finish: is not at the pub!! it’s a short ride from the pub along the road and track – see pictures!

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

Food…. the pub have asked that if you would like food after your ride, please get in touch in advance to book a table and provide a rough time please! Call 01751 460 213 or email info@foxandrabbit.co.uk

Dalby Start Finish 1

Dalby Start Finish 2

Maprun QR

Here’s the blank course map for our next event at Dalby Forest on Saturday May 9th

Event centre is the Fox & Rabbit, near Lockton (i.e. just outside the forest itself).

Online entry at BMBO here, discounted entries until midnight Monday 4th, online entry available until midnight Thursday 7th

We couldn’t get permission for an event at Dalby last year and, although it costs more than our usual events to obtain permision, the entry prices for riders are the same as normal. A great opportunity for MBO on the forest trails and roads!

Thanks to Tony Thornley for providing an excellent map and a challenging course with a lot of different routes selected by ~60 riders – you can see MapRun results and have a look at everyone’s route choice here. On my own route I had to miss #16 because the canal bridge was open!

Full BMBO amended results here – any issues please get in touch with Tim by Wednesday.

Here’s Tony’s report.

Thanks to all of you for coming and for the many kind comments. Apologies as usual for the hills and the extent of the area. I’ve yet to find terrain in Wharfedale which does not involve a lot of climb – hence my transition to ebike – and reducing the area would have limited the route
choice quite dramatically. I enjoyed checking out the bridleways and planning the course. The
excellent turnout suggests that you welcomed the challenge of the hills – despite the occasional
hail shower. (the weather was actually quite good after 9am Steve).

I was pleased to see that there was little consensus about the best route. Every control was
visited and the top 10 finishers all averaged around 55km – well done. Very few of you made
the dramatic descent to Skipton – not sure if anyone managed to ride it. But encouraging that
lots of you chose to check out my house. Overall I think my preference would have been to
ignore the controls N of Ilkley and in Skipton and make the most of the Leeds Liverpool canal.
One top competitor managed to bike off the map – a lesson in using a compass occasionally.
My thanks to Tim for map printing and helping with the organisation as always, and to Pete,
Dave, Rob and Chris who manned the start. And especially to Oliver and his team of mad bikers
(and sane partners) who helped in many ways, notably the food and drink and clearing up at
the end.
Tony Thornley

The next NYMBO event is at Dalby on May 9th but there’s also an MBO event at Austwick on April 25th too – enter here.

St Peters Church in the sunshine

Online Entry is here – early bird discount until midnight Monday!

Parking    Parking is at St Peter’s Church Hall, Church Street, Addingham LS29 0QS.

The entrance to the drive up to the church will be flagged off Church Street.

NB1: Only organisers can park in the surfaced car park outside the church hall; competitors must park in the field on your left immediately before the entrance to the church hall parking spaces. Parking officials should be present to direct you. Please park tidily.

NB2: the access off Church Street to the parking is a narrow track which is also the route for bikes from the start and back to the finish. Please go very slowly after turning off the main road. Bikes have priority!

Registration is outside the church hall if fine or inside if wet/cold. Please no mucky boots inside the church hall!!

Open from 0915 to 1030

Toilets and Food    Toilets are inside at the far (E) end of the church hall. We are providing hot drinks and biscuit/cake in the church hall when you have finished in return for a donation to charity. There may also be some savoury snacks. No charge but a donation to Yorkshire Cancer Research appreciated.

MapRun   – the event is entirely MapRun based. FAQ here Don’t forget to download the event in advance (folder is UK: North Yorkshire: NYMBO: Summer 2026: Addingham). All the controls have been checked for accuracy but GPS is variable. A Strava backup would be wise, but I’ll listen to pleading.

Start/Finish –Starts from 0930-1030 outside the Church Hall. The time limit is 3 hours with the usual penalties. There are no pre-assigned start times; first come, first served. You will get control descriptions  at registration.

MapRun will start if you tap ‘go to start’ in the car park. So, when told to start, and not before, tap ‘Go To Start’ on MapRun and it should bleep when the GPS finds you at the start. You will be timed from that point.

The finish is in the same place. You have to record at least one control after the start for the finish to register. After finishing please report back to registration to confirm your finish: outside if dry, in the church hall if cold/wet. I cannot see why anyone should cycle back to the start before they want to finish, but if you do, MapRun will end your run. You can restart if near the start by repeating ‘Go To Start” and it will record it as a separate run. We will make adjustments at the end if anything goes wrong.

Course map – the blank course map is below. The map is 1:40000, adapted from the 50000 OS.This is a large and hilly area. I don’t think anyone will get near a full house of the controls, so choose carefully at the start. The map is marked with the usual 30 controls with points values between 5 and 30.  Map size is almost A3: 350 x 295mm. Control descriptions are on a separate sheet.

Important Safety!

1. Kit: some of the routes cross high and exposed moorland. Come prepared if the weather is poor. We also urge you to wear a bright top and use lights as you are likely to use one or two busy A roads. We will check you have a whistle and bivvy bag or safety foil sheet. Will be on sale at the event if Tim remembers.
2. Some roads and routes are marked out of bounds with red crosses – don’t go there!.
3. The Leeds/Liverpool canal towpath runs across the bottom of the map. Places you can leave the towpath onto adjacent roads and/or across bridges are highlighted with blue circles on the map.
4. You can use the pedestrian bridges across the Wharfe in Addingham and Ilkley, but please dismount. The bridge in Addingham has steep and awkward steps.
5. Take great care on your bike leaving and entering the car parking area; the track is narrow.

You must report to the finish. My phone number is on the map if you’re stuck.

Terrain – It’s hilly. The rideability of the bridleways is shown on the map – see the legend – but these are weather and rider dependent.

Any other updates will be here.

Hope to see you at the event!

Tony Thornley

Just over 2 weeks until our next event, further details next week!

In the meantime, you can enter online here and get the early bird discount!

You’ll find the results for Saturday’s event here (updated Monday).

There are still a few updates to be made before these are finalised, please get in touch if you spot anything amiss.

Thanks to all the people who came to the Thorp Arch event, the weather was kind and felt like spring (until I rode home when the hailstorm seemed to pace me). The Cafe went down well and Tim, the owner, sends his thanks to us for coming. The portions were generous and I was particularly taken by the “Big Daddy Tea”. 

I enjoyed planning the event, this is an area I ride from home but I’d not ridden all of the bridleways before. It took some investigation with tracks on the OS map not agreeing with tracks on the ground, tracks on the ground not being on the map and fingerposts having yet a third opinion. The weekend before, I even found a new section of cycle lane that wasn’t there previously.

There was a last minute change to checkpoint 26 to move it away from the river edge. Thursday brought biblical rain and rivers were high. I thought it best to keep away from the edge so we didn’t trial the first NYMBOA – A for aquabike. 

Despite the rain, tracks were reported as generally dry and running well. One local, familiar with the area, said this caught them out as they came in with significant time to spare. Other locals tried tracks they’d not been on before and people reported liking the variety.

It was a good turn out with 47 people in total. Great to see a few new faces both the older generation and younger in the GEN category, we think the 6 gen pairs at one event is a record our statistician is currently getting his notebook out to check.

Every checkpoint was visited and not just because Andy Conn cleared up. Most riders concentrated on the south of the map sacrificing the far north. There were a couple of interesting routes taken, nearly a visit to Wetherby services and a few routes beyond the extent of the checkpoints. A couple of riders used the footpath alongside the river to go between 20 and 26. A penalty equal to the points of the checkpoint travelled to have been deducted for using a footpath as this would have provided an advantage over using the legal road route. 

Reported incidents included – one puncture, a broken mapboard and an airborne phone on a descent (recovered safely). Someone kindly picked up a Camelback Podium water bottle at one of the checkpoints and handed it to me at the end. If the owner recognises it from the photo on the nymbo website let me know and I will try to get it back to you.

Congratulations to the leading riders
M70      David Day – how would this have panned out if his lifetime rival hadn’t opted for an Ebike?
M60     Andy Conn
M50     Jeff Green
M40solo    Paul French
M40pair  Simon Bruton and Kevin Goodwin

Ebike     Steve Willis, despite saying at the start he wasn’t going to be competitive 

Gen     Martin and Will Edwards

W80    Karen Blackburn
W60    Sarah Slade
W50    Jo Anderson and Jemima Parker
W40    Louise Baker
Mix50   Sally Buckworth and Saul Muldoon

Thanks again to everyone for coming and for your kind words of thanks at the end. Its satisfying that people get the enjoyment you hope they will.

Online entries for this Saturday at Thorp Arch close midnight Thursday. We’ve got 45 entries so far and have printed 55 maps – there should be some entry on the day available but always better to secure one early.

The MapRun QR code is underneath if you need it or you can follow the manual path
select event / UK / North Yorkshire / NYMBO / Summer 25 /select event / UK / North Yorkshire / NYMBO / Winter 25-26 /

The event is called NYMBO Thorp Arch.  ( too distinguish from the CLARO running event using the same event centre!) If anyone wants to do both run and ride with a supervised finish they need to start the first event before 09:40 and do the 60 minute run maximum.

Start & Finish and Parking locations below:

It’s just over a week until our next event on Saturday 14th March – this is the last 2 hour event of our winter series, so a great option for a shorter ride!

Registration 0915 – 1015 | Starts 0930 – 1030 | 2 hour course

ENTER ONLINE HERE

Discounted entries available until midnight Monday 9th March
Online entry closes midnight Thursday 12th

The event centre is Tim’s Café on Thorp Arch Trading Estate.

There’s ample parking and the café is open from 8am to 2.30pm. The trading estate is quite unusual as an ex-military site, now also home to the British Library. The course is relatively flat with most tracks and bridleways having a surface that will be firm despite the wet weather. May even be dry if spring stays!

The area isn’t as rural a usual but there are a surprising number of, and variety of tracks and bridleways. Claire will be checking the course this weekend.

An old railway line runs through part of the course, this can be busy with runners and dog walkers so a bell would be advisable.

The map straddles the A1. There are crossing points by underpass and cycle paths around roundabouts but please be careful of traffic if your route choice crosses a busy road.

MapRun details and Start/Finish locations will be published next week ahead of the event.

The blank course map is below.

09/03 Updated map at this link

https://nymbo.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/thorpe-arch-0903.pdf

14 March 2026 – Thorpe Arch

Results from Saturday are here, Steve’s report is below along with the control map. Thanks as always to Steve for course planning.

Next event is Saturday 14th March and online entry will be open for that shortly.

I was impressed with everyone’s positive attitude when they finished very wet and muddy after 2 hours in that weather – especially if they had ridden through the flooded road within 5 minutes of starting!! Some riders luckily finished with very clean bikes having made #6 their last control !!
I thoroughly enjoyed planning the course but admittedly I did my first 2 recces in October when the bridleways were nice and dry. Then my final check in November when they were frozen solid. However, I did put out the taped route and checked the 3 controls we had to move last Wednesday so I realised that the soft bridleways were going to be a challenge. Unfortunately, at the last minute, I was asked to avoid the tracks on the west side of the nature reserve which is why they were marked OOB. Thanks for avoiding them but you are welcome to use them casually if you come back to ride there when/if the weather improves.
All of the controls were visited, everyone tried at least one of the wet bridleways and no-one used the out of bound tracks on the west side of Scorton Lakes. However, a few riders need to take a bit more care with their navigation so that we stick to the tracks that we are allowed to ride.
5 riders carried on along the disused railway line after visiting #30 instead of turning right onto the bridleway along the edge of the field. 3 of them realised and turned back but 2 riders carried on so will be deducted the 20 points they score for visiting #20
Too many riders continued SW after visiting #18, most of them turned right at the next junction but 3 continued along the private drive, 2 of them realised and turned round but one rider continued to the road on the way to #22 so will be deducted 25 points. 
A few riders kept right at the track junction SW of #21 and continued along the footpath before turning round and a few riders missed the junction SE of #29 before rectifying their mistake. Please take more care.
Congratulations to the leading riders SM Nuno Cerquira 481 VM Paul Dobson 425 SW Jemima Parker 345 VW Andrea Foster 289
Thanks to Ellerton Lakeside Cafe for an excellent event centre. 
Hope to see you at our next event at Thorpe Arch on March 14th when the weather will hopefully be much better!!
Steve