Thanks to Tim Evans for an excellent course, Jens for another well-drawn map and the Royal Oak for their hospitality. 38 riders took part in the final winter event and congratulations to the winners. Everyone seemed to enjoy their rides as the orienteering gives purpose to a ride which we probably wouldn’t have bothered with when we saw the forecast. Here are the results so please let me know if there are any mistakes.
It was close in both men’s categories where Nathan had an excellent ride to win with 457 point, 2 points ahead of Phill Collings 453 then Graham Tibbott 446. Martin Vesty won the Veteran class with 445 just one point ahead of Neil Reed with 444. There were 3 Generation pairs – Male – Dave & Gabe Collins 297, Female – Jemima & Lois Parker 251 then Mixed – Jonathon & Tessa Buckley with 219 in their first event.
Karen Blackburn won the Ladies section with 268 points while John Deighton & Ceri Williams were the first Mixed pair with 225 points.
I’ll ask the leaders to post their routes. I thoroughly enjoyed my ride as usual because it brought back memories of many rides when I lived in Aldborough and also planned my first 5 hour event using many of these tracks. My route was 2 30 19 21 23 5 15 29 20 22 13 28 18 8 25 12 24 17 10 1. Fortunately, I didn’t get caught up in the hunt like some riders.
The league starts next month with a 3 hour event in the Howardian Hills. Karen Clark has been checking out the bridleways and booked Terrington village hall. Its a beautiful area so I hope you can make it.
nymbo : north yorkshire mountain bike orienteers 
Thanks Tim & Steve. Tough challenge today which didn’t suggest a straight forward plan to myself! I noticed the hunt gathering so changed plans at Burton Leonard, skipping the ride through the village to the top of the hill. At the end I decided to be late rather than early and went and did the Farnham loop. It made me late but the points were worthwhile.
I did 9, 30, 22, 29, 20, 23, 14, 28, 13, 18, 8, 25, 12, 24, 17, 7, 11, 26, 3, 16, 10, 1, 2, 21, 19.
I skipped two at Knaresborough that I didn’t notice when I first set off and skipped the Burton Leonard three. If it hadn’t been so muddy I’d have braved more off road short cuts cutting down the 35 miles I had clocked including my ride from home.
I decided to do the North loop of the map first as it perhaps gave an easier route home. I started with 1, 10, 16, 3, 26, 11, 7, 27, 6, 5, then i couldnt decide how to approach Burton Leonard so i stuck with road to get 12 then 25 (3 laps round the pump), 17, 25, 10. At this point i don’t know what happened but i didn’t end up on the track to 18, (was going to go 18, 28, 13, 22, 20) instead i finished up in woodland, followed by a ploughed field and then found a track and followed it, which brought me through a garden to 13 instead! At this point my brain fell out, left became right and i set off to 28 instead of 22, so went 14, 20, 29, 15, 23, 19, 2 (had 2 minutes left so missed 30 and had time for 9 as tailwind helped me back, 4 mins late. Great event and a cleverly planned course in a part of the world i hadn’t considered riding before.
Anyone who has seen me faffing about at the start will know that I tend to get a bit wound up.
I was trying to remember all the useful tips Tim had kindly given me, and plot a route at the same time.
So, turn left out of the car park, left at the road junction and off I go. Still computing routes and distances, I began to realise that the road wasn’t really matching the map. Big farm, Spellow Grange, can’t find that on the map? Compass out, travelling NE? Nah, give it a shake and try again. Slowly dawns that Spellow Grange isn’t on the map, and neither am I! Back past the pub, hoping no one sees me, and start again with 105 minutes left.
By the time I had collected 30, 2, 19 and 21, I had ditched the idea of going to Knaresborough and getting lost trying for 30 and 15. So I just went to 5, 23 and 20. I stopped dithering about going to 14 when I realised how busy the B6165 was, and bailed out to 22 and13. Assuming it was going to be a fast, wind assisted ride home, I risked going to 28, 18 and 8, then started hoping that there weren’t too many gates on the Ripon Rowell Walk. There aren’t, but it was nearly as busy as the B6165! I met a continuous stream of cars with hunt followers, mostly considerate. Quieter along the nice b/w through 25, then just 10 and 1 to collect, before arriving at the pub only 2 minutes late. Just think what I could have done with those squandered 10-15 minutes……
Thanks to Tim (nice area, lots of advice, clear controls), Jens (user friendly map as we have now come to expect) and Steve (organises it all)
Karen
Showing a complete lack of preparation I’d barely looked at the map before the give-out. Gabe and I only decided to take part late the night before due to work pressure but it seemed wrong to miss an event right on our doorstep.
Our route went: 1, 10, 16, 3, 26, 11, 7, 27, 6, 4, 24, 25, 8, 18, 13, 22, 30, 9
It’s so obvious now where we could have improved – Not least by reading the right clue for the control we were searching for!
Thanks to Steve, Tim & Jens for your work and encouragement. A thoroughly enjoyable event.
I thoroughly enjoyed planning this event and thank you for all your comments, my aim was to make the area smaller to hopefully encourage some higher scores and I think I was successful. I also didn’t want there to be an obvious clear up route, last week I did some doodling on my route planner and found the optimum route was about 31 miles so Martin needs to get his route planning sorted as he did more and didn’t clear up but he did need to avoid the hunt. I did the first trip out in mid November and thought things couldn’t get any damper so worked on the if I could ride it then you should be able to ride it in February, surpisingly that was about right as most of the tracks are hard pack and the soft bit between 27 and 7 was no worse on Saturday than mid November.
My main two clue rides are on Viewranger http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MjI5ODA4Nw==
and http://my.viewranger.com/track/details/MjIzNTg3OA== sadly the photo link doesn’t seem to be working but the pictures are on the website link below. Nathan should be able to answer number 4 that he cycled past but couldn’t find from this, you can also see the ones that got away.
I was concerned about flooding as one of the flickr pictures will show of the puddle between 20 and 23 , I rode through it the first time but wimped out on Saturday when I thought it was lower but looking at the photo I am not sure. The puddle between 10 and 16 caught me out on Saturday as whilst I was worried about the flooding that occurs between 26 and 11 I didn’t expect flooding there . This is the main reason Roecliffe didn’t have any clues as if the road was closed 26, 3 and 16 would have been out and back clues. I also rode the soft tracks between 8, 22 and 23 on saturday as I hadn’t riden them as I knew they were soft from other trips but wanted to check, I am glad I had a bit of spare time to ride form 19 to 30 as the horses had made what was a reasonable ride into a much harder one in the 4 weeks since I did my trip. I was pleased to see from teh routes above that a number of you rode the track/ bridleway from 22 to 30 which I really enjoyed as it was a nice ride on smooth grass something you don’t normally find
Apologies for the 4 slight errors , Mr Day picked up 2 and Luke Parker blamed number 1 on turning left out of the pub ( he missed the church with steeple sign). These were .
1. The start finish was incorrectly shown on the south side of the road and this may be why Karen went wrong.
2. Control 25 description was south of track and it was North , apologies my notes got wet.
3. Control 4 was a bit too far west it was nearer the edge of the circle.
4. Control 20 was at the footpath junction which has moved further east since the map was drawn
I must say thanks to Jens for his map drawing and suggestions, Steve for his support and the Royal Oak for the use of their room and the excellent food.
Nice try Tim, but I’m certainly not blaming the map for my 180 error. I was just convinced South was North….
Thanks to Tim and Steve for another great event and apologies for not posting my route sooner! I started out on the south loop,leaving control 9 in the village in the hope I would have time to collect it at the end. My route was: 30, 2, 21, 19, 23, 5, 15, 29, 20, 14, 28, 18, 22, 13, 8, 25, 12, 24. From here with around 25 minutes to go I decided I had just enough time to complete the larger north loop. So from here my route was: 17, 7, 11, 26, 3, 16, 10, 1. I got back to the finish 9 minutes late with just too little time to go and collect control 9 which I had left at the start!