Here’s the map for this Saturday’s event at Biggin. Any changes due to the weather will be updated here on Friday night.

Here are the positions after Saturday’s event at Ripon. Best 3 events from 4 to count. Thanks to John Dixon for working them out. Next event at Biggin and prizegiving at Sicklinghall.

Winter League Positions (2)

PS Any type of bike is allowed at NYMBO events so any combination of frame, handlebars, wheels and tyres – just no motors!! Merry Christmas

A great mixture of riding on a beautiful winter’s day

Here are the results

Ripon Results

and here is the map with controls

2014 Ripon TH Working Drawing with Controls 7th December

Thanks to David Day for another excellent course which was perfect for December with street navigation as well as some cracking bridleways, 7 riders cleared all 30 controls so everyone else got better scores than usual and there were no complaints. The South Lodge made an excellent event centre with a warm welcome and lovely food.
Merry Christmas and, hopefully, we’ll see as many riders at Biggin on January 24th.
Steve
PS Someone left some gloves and I still have a pair of cycling shoes from Grewelthorpe. Please let me know if they are yours.

Here’s the map for Saturday’s event in Ripon. Register 0915 – 1015; starts 0930 – 1030. The course looks like a really interesting challenge, and you’ll need an offroad bike for at least 6 of the controls.

2014 Ripon TH Working Drawing without Controls 7th December

Here are the suggested fixtures for next year so that you can plan your holidays around them.

Provisional events 2015

Thanks to the planners who have volunteered to do all of the hard work next year.  I will confirm these dates and venues once I have heard from the landowners and agencies.

Here are the results so please let me know if there are any mistakes. Thanks to Dave Robertson for an excellent course which was very enjoyable despite the fog and muddy conditions. Thanks also to the Malt Shovel in Hovingham for opening early and welcoming 47 grubby riders afterwards! Roz Bardon won the spot prize for guessing the location of the photo which was near #15.  Next event at Ripon on December 13th. Hope to see you there.

Hovingham Results

Here is the map if you couldn’t make it. 2 class winners have replied with their routes. I did get the highest score on the day but had seen the map beforehand and made a few suggestions. I also know the area really well but chuffed to get more points than Andy Conn for the first time ever.

My route was 8 22 16 25 7 1 6 26 21 2 11 12 4 10 14 24 29 15 19 23 28 9

Andy’s route was very similar except that he went to 17 after 7, 28 after 4 and left out 24!

2014 Hovingham TH 40000 Working Drawing with Controls 9th November

Results and Steve’s comments to follow soon.

My challenge for this treasure hunt was to reduce the size of the area, find some interesting questions beyond the standard “number on pole” and make it an enjoyable point scoring ride for everyone who came along.

I was a little anxious that the torrential rain on Friday would make it more challenging for riders than I’d hoped. But despite everyone returning in a wet and muddy condition everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Despite attempts to make it straightforward, and remove a couple of the questions that had previously been a problem, there were still a couple of things that could have been better, sorry if they caused you an issue.

#2 – the name of the pump maker at Scackleton caused a few people a problem, although others found it correctly. The description could have been better.

#16 – I incorrectly labelled the question – east of gate, south of forest – although the control marking was in the right place. It should have been north of forest.

#23 – most found this, but adding next to bench could have helped!

#28 – should have said “markers on gate post” rather than “markers on gate”

#29 – this was a red tag on a tree in Thurtle wood – this was reported as missing by early riders, found on the ground by another rider and put back on the tree! (sorry don’t recall who it was but thanks). So others then found ok.

I tried to mark the soft ground on the map and tell people about the worst bits at the start. Today was always going to be soft going but hopefully there were enough decent bits to make up for that. The worst bit was along Slingsby Bank – especially the bit from #19 going east to the road or south. Unfortunately, quite a few riders got lost by going into Wath Wood (the bit marked out of bounds) rather than following the track along the edge of the wood. Going into Wath Wood quickly becomes a dead end – but given the number of people who did it, probably easier than I thought and one to have pointed out at the start. Hopefully my strategy of making the 30 pointers the properly off-road ones, but the 25 pointers all accessible from lanes was considered reasonable.

It’s a different experience planning a treasure hunt as the spread of controls relies on there being a suitable question, and it can be tough to make them a bit different. Anyone wondering why I relied on the “colour of tape” for #13 will be interested to know that I put that tape the about two and half years ago when planning the Terrington MBO (and we never used that location so it’s never been removed!). So I figured it would be low risk for it to disappear in the last two weeks.

I was really pleased that people seemed to enjoy their ride. I dropped a couple of locations that I felt were just making the course difficult for the sake of it, but tried to provide a good mix of conditions. Nevertheless, I think I expected higher scores, but I think the mud put paid to that.

As a little incentive for those of us never destined to win (like me), I conceived the idea of the “where’s my bike” photo spot prize. Like guessing the number of sweets in a jar, I wanted it to be hard enough not to be obvious but still guessable. I think I may have made it slightly too hard. Comments afterwards suggested it was a good idea and maybe we can do it again for other treasure hunts. Other ideas welcome.

Hope you enjoyed your ride wherever you went!

Here’s the area map for Saturday’s treasure hunt – 40 riders entered but there will be 10 spare maps for entries on the day. Forecast looks overcast with some early mist. Plenty of lane based treasure hunt questions, but the course makes use of most of the available bridleways – so expect patches of soft ground in places!

Hovingham Black 15 November 2014

Finger crossed that the 15th of November will be as sunny and unseasonably warm as the start of November has been, but whatever that the weather has in store I hope you’ll be able to come along to the first Winter Series Treasure Hunt.

Start & Finish at The Malt Shovel, Hovingham

The last treasure hunt to start at the Malt Shovel was in February 2013, but I’ve made a few changes. The area is smaller, there are more off-road controls, and I’ve changed some of the clues based on feedback. I’ve ridden all of the off-road tracks, and most are ok but as you’d expect there are patches of soft ground. There will still be plenty of controls that are accessible from the lanes and tracks though if the weather makes riding conditions difficult.

As an added bonus, I’m going to do a spot “where’s by bike” prize… I’ve taken a photograph of my bike  somewhere on the course and the rider who works out where it is (or is closest) will win something too.  So no matter what your treasure hunt score is, there’s still an opportunity to win something!

Full winter series details here and printable flier here; use the email form or enter at BMBO

This is the fourth year we’ve asked you to vote on your favourite league event – for the last two years it’s been Dalby Forest, with Swaledale taking the top spot in 2011. Which will be favourite this year? Poll will stay open until the 9th November.