Here are the blank maps for Wheldrake and Bishopwood.

Wheldrake Start         Bishopwood Start

Start between 10.30 and 11.30 at Wheldrake but there will be a chasing start from 2pm (until 2.30) at Bishopwood

Only 20 pre-entries so far but you have got until midnight on Friday to enter online at http://www.bmbo.org.uk

Glad we have got a better turn out at Sutton Bank on Saturday with 110 riders so far

With the NYMBO Winter Series finishing yesterday, we can now turn our attention to the weekend of events on 15th and 16th March that kick of the the 2014 league . Andy Parsons has been planning MBO at White Horse & Wass, and has sent in this update:

There is a new bike shop at the visitor centre run by Pace Cycles in partnership with the National Park centre. The Sutton Bank bike shop will be open all day and they have bikes available for hire if you need one – contact details and further info is on their (developing) website: www.suttonbankbikes.co.uk . The cycle shop also has bike wash facilities.

The Café and toilets at the visitor centre will also be open all day. The visitor centre has a “Lime and Ice” exhibition that you or accompanying non-cyclists can look around. There are also way-marked walks and excellent views off the escarpment.

The National Park is in the process of developing several new bike routes. These include some new bike specific trail building to link up existing bridleways and forest tracks. There will eventually be Red, Blue and Green routes. The Green (family) Cliff Trail route is already in place and the Blue will be opening in the Spring. We are including part of the new Cliff Trail route on the map as it gives a new route back to the centre from the Cleveland Way bridleway along the escarpment edge to the north. Please only cycle along the cycle routes in the signed direction.

The event map uses selected bridleways, forest tracks and minor roads to both north and south of the main A170 Thirsk to Helmsley road. This is a busy road with fast traffic so please be especially careful to look out for vehicles when crossing or using the road and I suggest that you wear some high-viz cycling gear. Some sections of the road will be marked as out of bounds for the event in order to keep cyclists to the more minor roads and tracks. Please look out for and do not use out of bounds sections of road, track and forest areas as we will deduct penalties from or disqualify riders doing so. Footpaths are always out of bounds to cycling. We are still in the process of finalising control locations and there may be some permissive tracks that are usable only on the day so please do not pre-ride any areas that are not formal bridleways or public highway.

The event map will use overprinted 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey mapping printed on A3 at 1:30,000 scale. The map will cover a slightly larger area than the map used for 2011 event when we started from Yorkshire Gliding Club just above the White Horse – this allows us to include a few more linking minor roads and bridleways.

If the weather stays as it is, many of the more minor tracks/paths shown on the map in the forest areas (shown as a dotted line) are likely to be very muddy and best avoided. The same applies to the bridleways between Old Byland, Scawton and Rievaulx. I have taken this into account when deciding control position to try to keep people off the worst tracks. There will be plenty of controls on minor roads for riders not liking the mud.

On Sunday March 16th, Andrew Windrum has planned the MTBO events at Bishops Wood and Wheldrake to the southeast of York. These are part of the BMBO Sprint Championships.

Both areas are well known for foot O and Bishopwood has previously been used once for MBO. There’s trails, singletrack, woodland, bit of grassland, some bracken, odd muddy bit, route choice, spectators, sponsor marquees and an international field of athletes. Entry for this event is here

Thanks to Frank & Sandra Appleton for an excellent course, Jens for a very clear map and the Blackamoor Inn for a very warm welcome.

Here are the results and the map

Boroughbridge Results

2014 Bridge Hewick 50000 Working Drawing with Controls 15th February

Please let me know if there are any mistakes.

Our next event is the first League event of 2014 at Sutton Bank on Saturday 15th March. Andy Parsons has planned an excellent course in great countryside and we are starting at the visitor centre so excellent cafe, bike shop and toilets.

This is followed by the British MTBO Sprint Championships on Sunday 16th March at Wheldrake Woods & Bishopwood near York. Andrew Windrum has planned 2 very fast courses in these intricate woods.

Hope to see you there

Steve

Here is the blank map for Saturday.  40 pre-entries so Jens has printed 50 maps. You can ride any type of bike but, as we are called NYMBO, prizes will only be awarded to leading riders on mountain bikes this month.

Thanks to Tim Evans for an excellent course and better weather than this weekend last year which meant that we had 55 riders. No snow and it didn’t start raining constantly until we had all finished. Thanks to the Wellington Inn for an excellent event centre and Jens Strain for another clear and accurate map. It’s a great area for riding at this time of year with such an intricate network of quiet country lanes linked by short bridleways – although I did push my bike up the worst one through Heck Gill Farm. Congratulations to the category winners especially Ed Oliver Evans with a brilliant score of 430. He used his local knowledge and cyclo-cross bike to good effect possibly helped by good map-reading skills and a reasonable level of fitness.

Darley Result
We will be back at the other side of the valley for our final event of the season in October. Before then, we have another winter event from the Blackamoor at Bridge Hewick near Ripon Racecourse next month with the league starting at Sutton Bank on March 15th.
There have been a few changes to the fixtures so please make sure that you download the up to date poster from the NYMBO web page and take copies to your local bike shops, biking groups and friends.

We have had 45 pre-entries for this event so Jens has printed 50 maps and descriptions – and here is the blank map.

Sorry it wasn’t posted on Tuesday but Dave Robertson is away skiing.

PS The Washburn event has been put back a week until June 28th so here is an updated poster

2014 NYMBO League Poster 22nd January

PPS The Spring OMM Bike event has been brought forward a week to April 26/27th due to a major car rally on the May Bank Holiday weekend

Thanks to the Dales Bike Centre for providing an excellent event centre and congratulations to the category leaders but I think we were all winners to ride for 3 hours in Swaledale on such a perfect day. I planned this permanent MBO course for the centre in March but very few riders have taken up the challenge. Hopefully, you have set the benchmark and more riders will try to match your scores or you may even decide to return and try again at the 5 hour event.

2013 Fixed course map (pdf version)

The next 2 NYMBO events will be ‘treasure hunt’ style events base on pubs in Nidderdale and Lower Wensleydale. The fliers are on the fixtures pages.
I have already posted the draft fixture list for 2014 (ProvisionalFixtures2014 (3rd Dec)) – and have now got planners for all of them except Dalby in September. Please get in touch if you want to have a go! Many of the dates, venues and time limits are only suggestions and I have not approached any landowners yet so please get back to me if you want to suggest any alternatives. Our average numbers were down to 87 this year and I don’t know why but I would like to see this return to 100 riders per event in 2014.
I am also planning both of the OMM Bike & Lite events next year. The Spring event will be in North East England on May 3rd/4th and the Autumn event will be in Northern England on September 6th/7th.
There will also be at least 2 MTBO events, the Moors Marathon as well as Le Tour so plenty of opportunities to ride in North Yorkshire again next year. Hope to see you there.
Steve

What a fantastic day. North Yorkshire at it’s best.Results below and full report later
Swaledale Winter Results