Tony Thornley has been hard at work planning this event, and the blank course map is below. There are some busy roads on the course, so worth familiarising yourself with the course beforehand, wearing bright clothing and using daylights on your bike.
It’s a 3 hour event with registration from 08:50 – 10:00 and starts between 09:15 – 10:15
The results from Saturday’s event are here and also a pdf version. Control map at the end of this post.
It was great to see 53 riders head out on Saturday and always good to see a few new faces too. I hope you all enjoyed your ride, thankfully the worst impending rain relented until everyone had finished!. Thank you for the many positive comments.
Following a few changes of venue, together with the very wet winter, it proved tricky to piece together a course with any decent bridleways, or even roads!, that weren’t axel deep in mud and water. We even had to move a couple of controls the night before the maps went to press!.
The two river crossing points were obviously key to route decisions and as it turned out, also responsible for quite a number of lateness penalties.
I tried to offer options for all once over the river. I think an anti-clockwise route from the start proved the safer option, this leaving a little more choice and leeway when turning for “home” rather than the committed return via Littlethorpe. That being said, decent scores were made in all starting directions. The winner chose an anti-clockwise start and even managed the north east loop of controls after clearing the majority in the south – impressive riding.
Scores, especially throughout the top 10, were very tightly packed. It was good to see Nuno Cerqueira over from Portugal and rewarded for his weekend trip with overall honours (459 points) followed by Martin Edwards in second. Impressive in 3rd & 4th were Y18 riders Isaac Pressly (409) & James Harrison (394) closely followed by top M21 Max Vesty (390). Jeffrey & Laura Barber took Gen honours (380) followed by top M50 David Cook (370) pipping top Mix Dave Cowgill & Claire Riley (360) who were very closely followed by a great ride from M70 victor David Day (358). First solo lady home was Sarah Slade (290) and Ebike honours went to Paul Collier (336).
Seamus from The BlackaMoor rang me to say he enjoyed hosting us, so a big thank you to him and his team. Also massive thanks must go to Tim Evans for his usual invaluable help and a great map, in addition to his organiser role, and also Dave Robertson for his website wizardry.
Lastly thanks to you all for making it another successful event.
Simon Coiley – Planner
A lane somewhere on the course – Always keen to get event photos that we can use in our reports!
An updated blank course map is below following some last minute changes. If you’ve already downloaded the MapRun course before 20:00 Wednesday, then you’ll need to download again.
Here’s the start / finish locations for this Saturday’s event (note that they are in different places for this event.
Parking: please park carefully and economically to ensure we can get everyone in!
The MapRun course download is now available. You can use the QR code, or you can find it manually by in MapRun by choosing:
Select Event | UK | North Yorkshire | NYMBO | Winter 23
Start and finish locationsUpdated course mapMapRun QR code
After plenty of checking of wet bridleways and even unusable roads, Simon has settled on a very rideable course on the many quieter roads and firmer ‘drier’ tracks. Hopefully the weather will start behaving and you can all enjoy a relatively dry and rapid ride on the day*.
It’s a 2 hour event; registration from 0915 -1015 and starts from 0930 – 1030
The pub is on the B6265 at Bridge Hewick east of Ripon. HG4 5AA
Although the car park is quite large there is no alternative parking so please park efficiently.
Pub grub will be available afterwards, menu will be available to pre order at registration as recent events.
Our latest email update with our provisional 2024 dates should be landing in your inboxes shortly – you can also find a copy here. If you’re not signed up to our mailing list then you can add your email address on this form here. (nb: this is only for the NYMBO mailing list, nothing else!)
Thanks to David Day for planning our January event and everyone who turned up on the day to take part!
The consolidated results can be found here and the MapRun courses that everyone took are here Control map below.
In 1319 the Battle of Myton took place when a horde of marauding Scots took on an English army of farmers & clergymen south of #23. The outcome was rather predictable with 4000 locals killed & 1000 drowned as they tried to escape.
Fast forward 700 years and a gang of brave cyclists fought their way through the mud from the recently renovated bridge over the River Swale to #23 & then picked up the straw lying on the BW, resulting in some bikes refusing to continue. What a good job that the course was not all like that. I am told that the ploughed field from #6 to #26 was rapid in comparison.
Many of the BWs did have solid bases & were quicker than expected for the time of year. A week’s hard frost only relented on Friday so it had been difficult to predict rideability of some off road routes but there was often a longer road option on many legs.
Thanks to Steve Willis for riding the course a week ago, he was due to be skiing on the day of the event [or maybe not as the temperature there was 12 degrees] & offering advice on the course. Every control was visited on the day with a wide variety of routes chosen. I tried to offer options between controls & clusters of controls – looking at the tracks on MapRun it seems that riders took every option that I anticipated & others too.
The event winner was M50 Andy Conn with 455, M40 Rik Thompson 405, M40 Kevin Goodwin 402; first lady was W40 Claire Riley 392 working well as a Mix50 team with David Cowgill. Best Generation team were Jeffrey & Laura Barber 360, best Youth was Isaac Pressley who had lots of penalties for a late return but still achieved 355. Second lady & also Mix60 with Steve was W60 Andrea Foster 283; 3rd lady was newcomer W50 Katie Gray 265 who enjoyed it so much that she is definitely coming again.
Looking at points scored per kilometre ridden, top of the list is Adrian Parker 8.82 pts/km, best lady Katie Gray 8.38 pts/km – look at their tracks for inspiration & learning.
We had an excellent turnout for a winter event, over 50 entries resulting in some last minute map printing by our nearby orienteering club Claro. Thanks to Dionne & Cameron for hosting us at The New Inn, an area that was new to many of us. David Day – Planner
The MapRun download is available now at the usual location – here’s the QR code – don’t forget to download before you set off!
Tholthorpe QR download
David has made some changes to the course map for this Saturday’s event, sadly there are no prizes for spotting the differences with the previous map. All other details as previous posts
Date – Saturday 20th January
Venue – New Inn, Tholthorpe YO61 1SL
registration – 0915 – 1015| start – 0930 – 1030
When David checked out the course last year it was mostly ridable; the record rainfall will have softened some BWs but most of them do have firm surfaces except where highlighted. Note the ploughed field which can be avoided or walked.
No hills in this area except for the railway bridges! All river & stream crossings have bridges so conditions should be different to Scorton Lakes.
Parking is at the New Inn, Tholthorpe, YO61 1SL – use the car park until it is full then tidily in the village. Food will be available after the event, please pre-order food before you set off on your ride.
Note that the start finish locations are as shown in the photo and not as on the blank course map
David Day has been out riding snorkelling his way around the bridleways and lanes north of York to plan our next event at Tholthorpe.
The Venue is the New Inn, Tholthorpe, which has exactly the sort of pub lunch menu you’ll want after a couple of hours riding in January!
Parking will be in the pub car park until that’s full and then tidily in the village.
Please order food at registration before you start.
Beware if intending to use Aldwark Toll Bridge – it is closed until ‘early 2024’.
Tholthorpe is another flat area, the only hills are bridges over the railway line! Hopefully, we’ll have some drier weather over the next couple of weeks to let the tracks dry out a bit, but there are no main roads to negotiate & most of the BWs are hard except where marked.
The course map will be published here in the next couple of days when Tim has had a chance to finalise.
It was such a pity that the cold crisp weather couldn’t last another week. The tracks were firm and frozen when I checked the course last Friday. I wondered if Martin Edwards might manage to clear the course but due to the mud he had to leave out 4 controls. I thoroughly enjoyed planning the course and was glad to be able to use the track network around the old gravel pits. It was always going to be a big decision as to whether to visit Scorton Lakes first or leave them until the end. Unfortunately some riders didn’t have enough time after battling through some very muddy bridleways. Thanks to everyone for your positive comments as you finished!!
A few riders missed the bridleway bend heading towards #30 and ended up riding along the disused railway line by mistake. One rider forgot to turn left at #21 and ended up struggling along a very muddy footpath for 2 km before reaching the road. Thanks for letting me know and no penalties for your accidental mistakes as you weren’t trying to gain an advantage.
Thanks to Ellerton Lakes Cafe for accommodating us and to Tarmac for allowing us to use the tracks around the old gravel pits. Thanks also to Tim for an excellent map and John for looking after Registration
Congratulations to the Category Winners
Gents Martin Edwards 464
Juniors Mieszko, Isaac & James 422
Veteran Gents John Rawden 410 (just 5 points ahead of DD)
Mixed Claire & David 408 (just 4 points ahead of Steve & Andrea)
Ladies Sarah Slade 275
Merry Christmas and hope to see you on January 20th at Tholthorpe
MapRun link here. Provisional results below at the PDF link and the full splits will appear on the NYMBO web page soon. Please let us know if we have made any mistakes?
nymbo : north yorkshire mountain bike orienteers 