Last Sunday saw the first real MTBO event of the year following on from the series of trailquests organised by Dromara cycling club and TrailblazersMTBO. The weather was fine on the day and the dry spell over the previous 3 weeks meant riding would be fast and faces unmudied!!
The event was held in partnership with Lagan Valley orienteers, the local orienteering club who have a great selection of maps of a wide variety of terrains for the traditional foot orienteeing events.
Mountain bike orienteering is very similar to foot orienteering in many respects though courses tend to be slightly less technical because MTBO uses paths only. So courses tend to offer more of a route-choice challenge than technical navigation challenge.
For many this was a first chance to try a course in which riders had to visit controls in sequence as opposed to the score event where any order is allowed. I think most enjoyed the challenge (a score event was provided) and it was good practice for the upcoming Northern Ireland champs.
over 30 riders turned up promptly for the early start – but not the planner who was busy riding flat out trying to get all the controls out on time! (Thanks to Jon and Martin for helping set up the start).
Most opted for the near 12km (measured in a straight line:-) long course, there was a short course of 6km and a one hour score event.
The long course took in a mixture of fast riding forestry roads and more technical riding on the slower trails which have become quite rutted thanks to recent trailbike activity. Route-choice decisions were aided by the fact that in the middle of Woodburn are two very large reservoirs!
Everybody had just set off when a flying Phil reported a missing control!! every planners nightmare, thankfully I had a spare control ready and got up to the control site toot sweet!
The control was situated near a quarry frequented by trail-bikers (I assed two sheepish looking suspects on the way up). The wire strop and padlock had not deterred the vandals and there was no sign of the missing control. The replacement went in and not too much harm was done.
The expected winning time on the Long course was around an hour and Phil O’Neil duly obliged coming home fastest in 1:01:54 just ahead of last years NI MTBO champ Paul McArthur and LVO’s Phil Stuart in third.
LVO’s Andrea Stefkova was first Female home.
On the short course Adrian Woods was victorious and the score event was won by Michael Murphy from brother Kieron and a gaggle of Dromara riders.
Special mention to John McBride who took a nasty spill on loose gravel near the reservoir and recieved some painfull looking injuries following a bit of a face-plant.
Thanks to Mandy and Boys for helping out with registration and Alan for map-printing and LVO for letting me convert a map to MTBO standard and use it for the event.
We are looking forward to seeing a big turnout for the Northern Ireland champs event to be held at Castlewellan on Saturday 10th October (more details to follow) The courses should be great fun with a good fast riding network of paths and a great forest setting.
See you there!!
Catch up with how Paul got on with his race here:
