Nopesport

As the spanking new Compass Sport arrived in people’s letterboxes on Saturday morning, with an MTBO’ing Phil Winskill on the front cover. I found myself in a freezing cold Wharncliffe Woods living, what the magazine said, “2006, the year of the bike.”

It was the first of the ‘Compass Point MTBO Series’ of 2006 and my first ever MTBO event. Not quite sure what to expect of the day, I arrived to see some rather well kitted out mountain bikers and other very familiar faces of elite ‘foot’ orienteering (some equally well kitted out). But other than it looked like a quiet local event.

The series is the combined brainchild of the GB MTBO team of 2005, ably masterminded by Chris Poole and Karen Heppenstall with the assistance of Dave Peel (the pioneer of MTBO in Britain). Many of last year’s World Champs team will be organising other races in the series. The Wharncliffe event was organised and planned by Killian Lomas.

The course used a specially adapted 1:15,000 orienteering map, that showed the ride ability of all the paths and tracks (a bit like Ski O), and the course was laid out in the usual way. Wharncliffe Woods has the Pennine Trail going through it and is well used by downhill MTB, so there are loads of tracks to use (nail biting ones at that). The course from a navigation point of view was fairly straight forward with emphasis on route choice and riding to your strengths. On a few legs the straight option was shorter over technical single track while there was a longer route round on forest tracks. Going in and out of the control the same way was a novelty to me having spent years attempting to flow through a control!

Having completed some small Adventure Races and a couple of Trailquests the whole idea of MTBO was nothing new to me. On AR’s and Trailquests courses, you tend to ride on 1:50,000 or 1:25,000 maps over a longer length of time. The winning time for Saturday’s course was for 70mins and went over some very technical paths that you would not normally find marked on AR’s/Trailquests maps.

In the end I was not able to race at a fast pace over the shorter MTBO as I prefer to plod over longer distances, and nor do I have the ability to ride such technical trails. But I would definitely do another MTBO, hopefully being a bit more competitive, now I now what to expect.

At the top end of the field, the cycling machine Steve Heading won by a clear 2 mins.

The women’s course was won by Heather Dawe 2 mins clear of Jenny Peel, who in turn was a minute clear of Heather Monro in 3rd (I wonder when was the last time Jenny beat Heather). Followed by the women’s 2005 MTBO team in 4,6 & 7. Looks like the series could inspire a full women’s team of 6 to go to this year’s World Champs to build on last year’s 4th in the relay.

Men’s Open
1. Steve Heading 76.08
2. John Houlihan 78.09
3. James Taylor 78.16
4. Rick Featherston 78.19
5. Andy Conn 81.34

Women’s Open
1. Heather Dawe 60.25
2. Jenny Peel 62.58
3. Heather Monro 64.01
4. Janine Hensman 64.35
5. Sophie Wood 64.55
6. Helen Winskill 66.47
7. Karen Heppenstall 68.30

Get set for the 11th & 12th March for a Janine Hensman’s mtbo :: double header

Full results can be found here