Howardian Hills event – updated results and comments
Updated results here
Jeff Harris planned an excellent course with plenty of route choice and the dry weather meant that the fitter riders were going to have to cover the whole of this beautiful area and no-one would have to spend much time cleaning their bikes afterwards. The tracks were the driest that I can remember so that even the ploughed field north of Terrington was rideable.
Thanks as ever to Jens for another excellent map; Jeff for putting out all of the controls; Geoff Moorhouse, Alistair Copeland; Michael Brough for their help on the day as well as the control collectors (see below). Congratulations to Edwyn Oliver-Evans (M21) for winning again and visiting all of the controls with 8 minutes to spare. Andy Conn (M50) did the same but was 42 seconds late so only 524 points this month. The other leading riders were Andrew Windrum M40-520, John Rawden M60-390, Steve & Andrea Foster X50-385, Sue Booth W50-375, Ray Morriss M70-361, Stuart Pigg; Jake King Gen-351
You can follow all of their routes using the splits file and course map. I made a mistake with the SI programme as I copied the Cropton file where I had to change the values of 47 and 57 around. Unfortunately, I forgot to change them back again which didn’t matter if you visited both controls. I’ve amended the results and posted the correct version on the web pages. Please let me know if there are any other errors. Apologies also to 2 riders who tried to find the start at Gilling East. I changed the event centre a few months ago and thought I had updated the web pages. Sorry you didn’t see that but glad that you made it to Brandsby in time. I thoroughly enjoyed my ride as usual on my newly serviced bike and skinny tyres. (Thanks John). Having already seen the map, I had already decided to get the climb over first so headed for Gilling Woods. I reached Hovingham in under an hour so decided to visit all of the controls in the woods before heading back through Terrington and Scackleton. It was very obvious why this area has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Don’t forget that I will still be retiring as an organiser at the end of the season so the Nidderdale event will be my last. I would still like to hear from someone who is interested in taking on the coordinators’ role or a few people who would like to manage the events between them. I will still plan an event every year and ride whenever we’re not on holiday, seeing the family or playing golf!!
The next event will be a 5 hour Score event in the Yorkshire Dales based at Gill Garth Farm in Selside, Ribblesdale and it’s an early start at 9.00am. Alex Pilkington has planned an excellent course but unfortunately I won’t be able to make it so I hope to hear lots of excellent reports.. Steve
Planner’s comments From the comments I received at the finish everyone enjoyed the event, I really enjoyed planning the event, did anyone have time to admire the views from one of the ridges in the area and the Brandsby Village Hall made a great event centre, although the parking was a bit tight at the end. There was plenty of option for riders to plan a route back to the start, you just had to decide at which point to cut back through the middle of the area or stay on the outside of the area, for anyone going for all the controls the main decision was when to pick the controls in the centre of the area, congratulation to Edwyn who managed to clear all the controls with over 8 mins to spare, I knew the area was fast and with ground being so dry there was every chance that someone would clear the area in under 3 hours. Many thanks to Ray, Andy, Andrew, Adrian, Tim, Edwyn and John, for your help collecting in the controls at the end after their rides.
All the best, Jeff
nymbo : north yorkshire mountain bike orienteers 
I forgot to add the spot prize winners so here they are
Graham Tibbot
John Galway
Matthew Streets
John Rawden
Phil Upton
Jill Ellison
Hope you enjoyed your ride and don’t forget that if you want to win one you probably need to get an early start!!
Another great event – Thanks to all who assisted with organization. Dry trails were very welcome!
Was I the only one who struggled to find 49? (i approached from Hovingham end) I can only assume it was the via the field with new crops growing close to the hedge. I gave up trying to find it after 20 minutes!
A few of us went wrong here- it was easy to keep following the big farm track which eventually turned south. The correct route was via the field of crops, but if you went to the right of the hedge it was much more rideable than the left. There was no bridleway sign, the only clue was counting off the number of fields on the map from the farm.
Thanks. I must get more adept with the extra detail on the 1:25000 maps (e.g: field boundaries!) I even looked for wheel marks but didn’t see any – The downside of an early start, maybe?
David sorry you had a problem with the track across the filed at Wiganthorpe, there is a bridleway sign just past the hedge when you leave the road from Hovingham and a couple of posts in the crop field then another post with at the edge of the field.
Heading South (from Hovingham) if you set off across the field in the direction of the bridleway finger post at the top of the first ridge you will then see the other posts in the crop across the field; heading North (from Terrington) the arrow on the marker post at the edge of the field points across the field and you can also see the posts in the crop, once you get to the second post you can’t actually see the bridleway sign next to the road until you get to the top of the ridge again, but you can see the roof of the house next to the road so aim for that until you can see the bridleway sign and road.
This track gets ploughed up every year but becomes more obvious as more people use it, if you look at Google Earth you can see the bridleway across the field, I did ride it myself both ways on the Monday and again Friday before the event to try to make it stand out more and as Steve said in his commenst as it was so dry it was ok to ride albeit indistinct.
No worries, Jeff. I think I was suffering from brain fade at that point due to lack of sleep in the days running up to the event! I realized I’ve actually ridden it from the opposite end (in February when Brendon’s Slingsby event was cancelled but we rode anyway). It looks quite different with summer vegetation.
Still thoroughly enjoyed Saturday. Thanks for a great event. David
You may have noticed that Andy Conn hasn’t got any split times and that’s because he lost his dibber. However, he punched his map at every control then luckily found his dibber when he collected some controls so I was able to download it. It was too much hassle to alter and post new files so I hope this is ok with everyone.
PS Thanks to Simon Coiley for finding Graham Tibbot’s Garmin
We’re lucky to have such eagle-eyed and honest competitors 🙂