Final results are here and you can find the MapRun tracks and splits here

Considering what was happening all over the country last weekend – gales,
snowdrifts storms etc, the weather gods smiled kindly on Ripon for the morning of
our bike event. The first line of the carol ‘earth as hard as iron, water like a stone’
certainly applied at Ripon with both football & rugby fixtures frozen off but mountain
bikers are made of sterner stuff. The course area was set so as to cover parts not
used in recent bike O events with a shift to the east, this did involve crossing the A61
for many of you but we planned so that there were safe places to cross it. When
planning I avoided the muddiest BWs but on the day most of them were motorway
speed although as the morning progressed the BW near Markenfield Hall turned
sticky.

65 km was calculated as the optimum route, leading rider was M40 Nuno Cerqueira
– 425 points after his 35 penalties, 50k ridden; rolling back the years was BMBO
treasurer M50 Simon Coiley – 360, also rolling back even more years in 3 rd place
was M60 Tim Evans. First lady was W50 Claire Riley – 332, accompanied by Dave;
2 nd lady W60 Andrea Foster with Steve in tow, 3 rd W60 Sarah Slade – 260 with a well
judged 4 seconds to spare. Generation team was Ewan & Rik Thompson – 230. All
the controls were visited & no unanimity of route choice, which is how a well planned
event should look. The most efficient man was Tim who scored 9.16 pts/km, best
lady Andrea 9.09 pts/km.

Special mention to Simon Caldwell and Carmen Elphick who both rode the bike O &
then tackled the 60 min foot O running alongside the NYMBO event. This was the
second time we have combined bike O and foot O but it was the first time that a biker
entered the foot O by mistake and a biker who downloaded the foot O MapRun course;
thanks Tim and Claro for sorting this out.

Thank you the brave souls who turned out on a freezing day & were rewarded with a
glorious sunny morning with virtually no wind & firm tracks. Thanks also to Ripon
Rugby Club for hosting us and providing welcome refreshments after and Sean for
marshalling cars and Linda for registration.

Next event is at Ellerton Lake on 7 Feb – another nice warm café after your ride.
David Day Planner

Thanks to David Day for organising another excellent event!

Winter Poster 26-Nov-2025