Congratulations to Kevin Smith for clearing all bar one of the controls. Thanks to the 63 riders for appreciating the course and superb riding, thanks to Jens for another excelent map and to Stuart & Brenda Price and their staff at  the Dales Biking Centre for making us welcome. Pity there weren’t more riders but perhaps this event shouldn’t have been scheduled for the summer school holidays.

The Dales have never been so dry and the singletracks so easy to ride. I even managed to ride up from Castle Bolton to #47 when I was collecting controls without having to push or carry my bike. Thanks to all of the helpers but especially John Rawden, Andy Parsons, Sam & Paul Leight, Graham Townsend and Tony Gray who helped to collect the controls in despite being already rather weary after 5 hours in the saddle.
I enjoyed planning the course and checking the control sites as well as a few bridleways I hadn’t ridden for a while. I didn’t go for a ride while you were riding but enjoyed putting out 9 controls on Friday with help from John Dixon, Dave Robertson and Graham Townsend – and collecting 7 on Saturday evening. Thanks also to Bolton Estate for letting us use their private track past Greenhaw Hut which many riders seem to have used.

There doesn’t seem to have been an optimum route with many riders taking very different routes – and having to go in and out to some controls – particularly #53 which was on a lovely track. I was surprised to see so many rider choose to push their bikes south up to #52 and also north up to #59. Very difficult optons which could have been avoided with a different route choice. I feel sorry for those riders who had difficulty finding the track up to #52. I wondered about taping it but it appeared to have improved when I checked it but I did ride it from south to north which is definitely easier – although some riders got lost in that direction as well by following the footpath along the landrover track westwards instead of the quad track going north. No apologies this time as the control was on the ‘footpath’ fingerpost which should have been a good clue!!
Congratulations to the category winners and John Dixon will update the league so comments about that when they are posted. Commiserations to Graham Fielding who was on for a great score until his tyre split which cost him 2 hours – but he still managed 295 points.
You may have noticed that there were permanent markers at a lot of the controls. These are part of the Dales Bike Centre permanent MBO course which is going to be opened at a special event on Sunday 13th October – the weekend between the Pocklington and Masham events. Look out for details on the web sites soon.

Next NYMBO events at Malham on August 24th and Ampleforth on August 26th.

Next NEMBOS event at Hamsterley on August 11th.

League results after 4 events now available

Hope to see you at least at one of these.
Steve

PS Our apartment in Samoens is still available for late bookings this summer and early skiing bookings!

Results for Swaledale can be found here (or through the results menu above)

Full report tomorrow but congratulations to Kevin Smith for clearing all bar one of the controls. 63 riders for appreciating the course and superb riding. The Dales have never been so dry and the singletracks so easy to ride. Thanks to all of the helpers but especially John Rawden, Andy Parsons, Sam & Paul Leight, Graham Townsend and Tony Grey who helped to collect the controls in despite being already rather weary after 5 hours in the saddle.

Next NYMBO events at Malham on August 24th and Ampleforth on August 26th. Next NEMBOS event at Hamsterley on August 11th.