Here’s the blank map for the Whledrake event that takes place on Saturday 12th February.

Online entry here (closes midnight Thursday 10th)

The map is not quite finalised – but the extent of the course is unlikely to change.

Our 4th winter event of this series is based at the excellent The Wenlock Arms in Wheldrake (sadly The Jefferson Arms in Thorganby and The Black Bull in Escrick are both closed). The South York course area is flat and so it’s a fairly large area. The course uses all the suitable bridleways and cycle paths plus I’ve also got permissive access for some additional tracks. Care will be needed on the short sections where the A19 is unavoidable. Hopefully the course is good for riders of all abilities – a challenge but plenty of interesting areas too.

I’ll update on the pub menus and parking arrangements next week (Parking in Wheldrake isn’t quite as easy as venues like The Squinting Cat).

Please get in touch if you have any questions!

20220212-blank map

Here are the finalised results, as some of you spotted we had swapped 4 and 9 round but then sent an old map to the printers so we have awarded points based on the map scores, this means if you visit 9 on the map , maprun showed you as visiting 4 so we have added 5 points to your score , if you visited 4 map run shows you listed 9 so we have removed 5 points.

I have made it clear in the right hand column what I have done, if you think this is wrong please let me know and I will adjust again. I have also updated for controls that didn’t pick up ( Control 2 for 2 people ) .

Results summary: 20220122-results_final

MapRun link with Splits here

Two admin items for riders:

1. You will note most results are in yellow, these are the ones on the maprun server , those not in yellow have told Steve their result but not uploaded their track or result to the server.

If you go to maprun look at your result and in the top right hand corner click on the lines and then select manual upload, this should add your result and I can then adjust for 4 and 9 if you visited them.

2. The other item is if you think you went to a control and it isn’t green on the map on your phone using the HITMO option on the top Right hand button allows you to widen the search , it is far better if you do this rather than the admin as it preserves your score . Your score then shows you have done this and the admin can remove this note and the other results if it has come through.

Any questions ask Tim and the next event, although he isn’t up to speed on using a Garmin watch.

Thanks to Steve Willis for planning an excellent event yesterday and ensuring the weather stayed fine! here’s his report. I’ll update this post with the MapRun results link as soon as I get it.

Thanks to Tim Evans for an excellent map and advising riders about Maprun at Registration; Dave Robertson for looking after the Start; and Vicky and all of the staff at the Buck Inn for a very warm welcome as well as delicious food served very quickly.

I thoroughly enjoyed planning the course as usual as it gave me a good excuse to ride in this lovely gentle countryside not far from my doorstep. It was even better last week when the bridleways were even firmer and the hedges hadn’t been cut! It was disappointing that so many of you had to repair multiple punctures.

Controls 4 and 9 were the wrong way round on the map so some scores will need adjusting.

It was great to see 62 riders at a winter event and congratulations to the winners. Martin Edwards rode an impressive 55k and visited all but 4 of the 30 controls to score 490 points and win overall. John Dixon marked his first competitive ride for a few months to beat all the other Veteran Gents. Claire Riley rode solo to outscore the other Ladies. Sally Buckworth & Saul Muldoon won the Mixed class while Laura & Jeff Barber won the Generation class again.
Hope to see as many of you at our next event on February 12th at Wheldrake
Take care and stay healthy
Steve Willis

I hope everyone had a good ride today, here are the provisional results. If your result isn’t what you expected please get in touch. Event report to follow.

20220122-results_prov

Start

There are 70 riders entered for Saturday’s event and the weather forecast looks good so it should be a great event.

Don’t forget to download the event into MapRun before you set off (QR code below)

Menus and information for the Buck Inn are here

Here are the start and finish locations:

And here’s the QR code for you to use to get the map uploaded:

It’s just over a week until our first event of 2022 – Saturday 22nd January at Thornton Watlass.

Online entry is open until midnight Thursday 2oth – click here to enter

Don’t forget, these events are usingMapRun. If you’re using a smartphone, don’t forget to load the course onto the phone at home; if you’re using a smartwatch or Garmin, you need to synchronise with satellites before approaching the start. Please do this just before the event so you get the correct version.

The controls have been set so you can ride straight through them, if you are sure you are in the correct place and you don’t hear it please continue to the next control rather than stopping in the middle of the road. There are some new tweaks you can do on maprun and we have added these to the FAQ so you can make the ‘ping’ louder and use a different tone.

Please sign in at Registration outside the pub and collect your Description sheet as well as the Pin number. Load the number into your phone, collect a map and ride to the Start at the SW corner of the village green.

We are only using 4 of the bridleways on the map and they were all rideable last week. This is a pleasant undulating area with lots of quiet country lanes and pretty villages for you to enjoy. Please be careful crossing the A684 at the marked crossing points
The Finish is next to the banner in the car park behind the pub

Course map: 20220122-ThortonWatlassCourse

Almscliff Crag at control #9

A very late report on the 11th December race from the Squinting Cat at Harrogate. I ordered the maps based on a few more entering after lunchtime on the Thursday and luckily ordered 60 as by the time entries closed at 23:59 we had 60 entrants.  52 of you entered on the day and seemed to go on numerous routes. Top 3 finishes were Ian Furlong with 429 points who rode 37km, Simon Coiley on 389 points who rode 35.5km and Carrick Armer on 385 points who rode 33.7 km. Other category winners were David Day in the Male 0ver 60 class who was a very credible 5th with 359 points who rode 33.5 km. Top Mixed pairs were Lois and Adrian Parker who scored 350 points and rode 31.6km . First Lady was Sue Booth on 309 points who rode 32,9km and top generation team were Jeffrey and Laura Booth who rode with Mieszko Lichtarowicz they scored 307 points and rode 30,7 km .

Full routes and scores are on the maprun portal here .

Thank you for all your feedback and comments and I hope you all enjoyed your ride. I enjoyed planning my first maprun winter event, no longer did I need to find obscure clues although I did leave a post box in for those who read the clues, you simply decide you need a control in that location and place it , this means that when I realised the event was too large I could easily move some of the controls to make it more compact.

I was surprised less of you visited the outlying controls 8 and 22 as I suspect they would have been quicker route between 27 and 21 and got you 5 more points , similarly I think 28 to 11 may  have been faster via 7 as given the recent rain some of the tracks were much slower.  In hindsight I think the urban bits round Harrogate probably favoured the local riders a bit much  although there is no excuse for going down the wrong road at Pannal Ash Roundabout which at least 2 riders did I won’t embarrass them by naming them., but it meant they picked up 15 first.

We had very few problems with Maprun which is good to see, a couple of controls were not picked up but the riders had clearly gone towards them and increasing the search radius from 30m to 60m meant the system recognised them.

Thanks to Bridget for manning the registration for me and Dave Robertson for his excellent web work and e-mail production, and the staff at the pub for their warm welcome.

I hope you all have everything planned for Christmas and New Year and we look forward to hopefully seeing you at our next event on the 22nd January from the Buck in in Thornton Watlass, Steve has already planned an excellent event for you.  This will be followed by a February event near York and a March event in deepest West Yorkshire planned by Tony Thornley.

We are starting to produce a plan of events for the Summer 2022 series  so if you want to have a go at planning all you need to do is find an area, a start venue such as the village hall and get planning , you can use Maprun or SI the choice is yours , please get in contact via the website so we can hopefully have a full year of events, and build on the success that we managed to make from 2021

Best wishes for Christmas & the New Year

Tim

Hopefully everyone had a great ride today, and at least the rain held off until everyone was back. The draft results from today’s event are here .

Tim has a note of penalties, and is making the adjustments but if you spot any controls missing from your score or any oether issues please get in touch!

The control map is below, Tim’s race report and finalised results to follow shortly.

11 Dec 2021 Control Map

Our next winter event is approaching, and this time it’s based at The Squinting Cat in Harrogate on Saturday 11th December. It’s a 2 hour event, and you can enter online anytime until midnight Thursday 9th.

Online Entry

Registration: 0915 – 1015
Starts: 0930 – 1030

Venue: The Squinting Cat, Whinney Lane Lund House Green HG3 1QE – full details, directions and menu are on the website

The course will use the roads, tracks and bridleways to the west of Harrogate, they are still riding fairly well although some are getting a bit softer, a couple of the worst tracks have been improved since Feb 2019 when we last used the area.

Event mapRun QR code

The event will use MapRun. If using a smartphone don’t forget to load the course onto the phone at home; if using a smartwatch or Garmin you need to synchronise with satellites before approaching the start. Please do this just before the event so you get the correct version. The controls have been set so you can ride straight through them, if you are sure you are in the correct place and you don’t hear it please continue to the next control rather than stopping in the middle of the road, there are some new tweaks you can do on maprun and we have added these to the FAQ so you can make the ‘ping’ louder and use a different tone

The blank map for the event is here:

An excellent course planned by David Day this weekend. here’s his report, the results and a copy of the control map. Please get in touch if you spot any problems with your result. Category winners get free entry to the next event – at the Squinting Cat, Harrogate on December 11th.

You can also look at the Maprun results and peoples tracks via the MapRun webportal here , the PIN code is 6193, this links into Routegadget and you can have some fun watching different routes as well as seeing which route was fastest

Ripon results (v2)

What brilliant weather for mid November, well over 50 riders took part in the Ripon event from the South Lodge pub.

The area is split by the busy A61, I tried to encourage riders to use the safest crossing points on it. The E side is mostly flattish roads and scored 290 points; the W side is hillier and includes some bridleways scoring 235 points. I had avoided what would have been muddier BWs but in fact most of them would have been OK.

The pub changed hands a few weeks ago, when I called in to remind them of the event I was told they had no kitchen but could serve sandwiches & chips. Apologies for anyone whose food was delayed, I think we overwhelmed them!

The overall winner was M40 Robert Mawer on 515, he nearly cleaned up but somehow failed to cycle 250m to pick up #9 and had a minute to spare. Second was M50 Tim Evans on 447 followed by M21 Chris Dodd on 437. Vets are now M60+, easily won by M70 Steve Willis on 405. The performance of the day must be GEN Laura Barber who took a week off competitive rock climbing to amass 430, the highest score of any lady with father Jeffrey. W50 Jill Ellison scored 389 on the tandem with Conrad, next was W40 Claire Riley on 362.

MapRun: There were very few snags with MapRun/phones/smartwatches today; there was an incidence of some phones going into battery saving mode during the event but they still recorded the track. I am told that this can be prevented by setting the phone not to go to sleep whilst using MapRun App. Generally though there were less & less problems, riders are getting the hang of the technology. We tried to reduce clutter on the map by only putting the control numbers on it, leaving off the points values, did this cause any problems for riders?

Lost property: 1 pair black men’s gloves – contact planner David Day       deedays@tiscali.co.uk