Castle Howard

5hr Trailquest

Sun 3rd October 2004

• Treasure Hunt - 02/10/04
• TQ Event Details - 03/10/04
• Results
• Splits - not avail
• League Posns
• Comments

Comments

Firstly, I want to thank Castle Howard Estate for their positive attitude about the event and for providing an excellent event centre at Lakeside Caravan Park. Hopefully you will now want to come back to the Howardian Hills! Secondly, thanks to the 6 riders who hung controls on Saturday – Dave Evans, John Dixon, Robin Harris, Steve Roberts, Dave Lloyd and Jeff Harris. Thirdly, thanks to the helpers who make these events possible by doing all the jobs on the day. I will mention them by name so that you know who you are talking to at the next event:

Most of them have helped at every event this year – and have planned one as well.

Finally, thanks to Dave Day for planning and organising the treasure hunt on Saturday; Jens Strain for producing the maps this year; and to Barbara Willis for making the plaques, her help and support all year – and for being my wife.

I know from your comments afterwards that many of you really enjoyed the event. It is a brilliant area for mountain biking despite only going up to 160m above sea level and the tracks were even better a fortnight ago. You were lucky with the weather considering what it was like further south and then later while you were driving home and we were collecting controls and tidying up. We had all finished by 6.00 but it took until Wednesday to get the awning dry!

I got out for a 2 hour ride, once you had started, checking out the fun run route and a couple of farms. No problems and no complaints afterwards! Thank you.

I didn’t see many riders but those that I did see seemed to have trouble matching the map to the ground. Talking to some riders afterwards I realise that there are plenty of good cyclists at our events and quite a few whose map reading skills leave a lot to be desired!! I took up cycling because I couldn’t run any more. I seem to do quite well because I don’t get lost even in areas I don’t know because I try to keep in contact with the map all of the time and don’t just follow the rider in front.

Many of you had problems with #23 because you stayed on the upper track and went to the north corner of the wood where everyone else was! Others had problems going from #24 to #27 because you stayed on the south side of the stream when you got to the corner of the wood. Fortunately the farmer found some of you and redirected you without getting annoyed about you being off the public right of way. I would like to make 2 suggestions:

• use the easier road sections to plan ahead and look out for awkward areas
• if there are a lot of riders looking for a control you are probably in the wrong place or the control is missing – but, thankfully, we have only lost 3 in 4 years!

I have just looked at the results and some of the routes you took. I was glad to see such a variety and that even Andy Conn had to leave out 6 controls. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for taking part. It is difficult to single out individual riders but I would like to mention a few riders:

• Mandy Faint who won the Women’s category by 75 points.
• Henry Syska who finished second in the Super Vets yet even though he still can’t walk properly after his accident
• Karen Blackburn who beat the Vet women and was only just behind the senior women leaders
• Steve & Andrea Foster who beat the senior mixed teams – despite Steve’s age!!
• The Mixed Generation teams of Frank and Jess Appleton and Mike and Beth Pickwell who gained excellent scores by sensible route planning.

The event just broke even including a donation of £75 to the Howardian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. I have asked the ranger to put some of the money towards signposts between Slingsby and Barton-le-Street.

Thanks to Paul Allen who has written a report about the event:

 Castle Howard TQ Oct 3rd 2004 - Report by Paul Allen

The day dawned early for us at Kendal, there was a distinctly chilly air about at 6am. The forecast had talked of rain and wind, but the stars were out and it was fairly calm. We loaded up, headed East and slowly the day awakened until at Wensley, we were treated to a lovely orange sunrise. The venue near Malton promised no steep mountains, just rolling hills and plenty of Bridleways. The final EBOR league event and tca National had attracted 150 entries. The 5 mile of dead straight road is quite unusual down the middle of Castle Howard and there is a very regal feel to the place, with the tree lined avenues, high walls and decorative folly gateways.

The weather looked much better than predicted, it was mostly clear blue sky with a heavy dew on the ground. The A3 1:50,000 map was large and the controls well spread out. Once you got over to the left hand side, they were all good high scores, the main challenge would be finding a way to most efficiently string them together. Looking at the split results reveals that a lot of people went a similar route, the majority going in an anti-clockwise direction. The thing that separated the winners, was the low scores they decided to leave out in the east half of the map.

18 seemed a good starting point, and 6 could be got on the way to it, so that was a popular choice. Not knowing the tracks between 9 and 8, I flew round by the road from 18 straight to 8, but Liam said these tracks were fine, and 9 would therefore have been worth the effort. Then there was a nice string of high points with 30, 20 and 23. The track on top of Caukleys Ridge was a shear pleasure to ride, fantastic views in every direction. I was fortunate to notice that 23 was on a lower track to the ridge top, and dog legged down the steep hill on the road briefly. There were a lot of tyre tracks going straight across the road at the top, and I chuckled at how sneaky the course planner had been here.

Some people went for 19 next, but I decided it was too isolated and I would save my efforts for later. 22 was up a steep little climb, then along the road to head through Gilling to 28. Once you got out of the sun, it went very cold. Jens had used a very cunning method to 'hide' all the contours in Yearsley Moor wood. Simply obliterate them with OOB hatchings. It was a fair climb up past 28, then it wasn't immediately obvious what the best way was to string together the next lot of controls. A familiar pattern emerged in the results, the most common order being 17, 11, 26, 16, 25 and 29.

Going in and out to 29 along that slippy BW was quite a challenge. Lots of nettles to brush against and the climb out of the bottom was a definite push. 29 was the only control I had trouble finding, I rode 200m past it and had a good hunt round before eventually finding the track junction I was looking for. It was in the right place, no doubt about it. I collected 7 then had fun on the mud slide and decided on leaving 15 so that I could make 21. There was a man with his head in his hands mending his 5th puncture of the day as I turned in towards Airyholme. Riding to 24 required a lot of nerve and daftness. I was just waiting to bounce of the foliage and get the handlebars tangled up in the wire fence, but it never happened. It was very narrow and again a bit soft under the tyres.

The tracks to 27 and 3 were good going and I still had an hour left to go. It was here that I wondered if I could maybe have put this time to better use earlier on in the event? I had so far been collecting up points at a rate of 90 or 100 points per hour, but this was over now, I had reached into the zone of diminishing returns. I was glad to be near the finish though as I have been suffering cramps after 4 hours lately, so better to be safe than sorry.... There was only one thing for it, I went and committed myself to the loop to gather up 21 and 12.

Not having any idea what these tracks would be like, I felt comfortable with the amount of time left. I collected control 2 up as it was so handy and the fields to 21 were dry, so far so good. NW of 21 was a steep climb up through the woods. It would probably have been rideable if dry, but once I was off, I carried on pushing. Then due north in the distance was a beautiful looking ornate bridge, this must be part of the Castle Howard Estate. I was pleasantly suprised to find the track marked for runners was tarmac and it was fine right up until the fields to get to 12. I knew by now I would be late but pressed on regardless and carried on up to the road. It was practically downhill all the way to the finish once onto the tarmac and I was happy with the way things had gone.

I had come unstuck the previous week at Boltby with speedblaster semi-slicks, so fitted something a little more aggressive for Castle Howard. As it turned out, the trails were very dry and good going. I ended up listening to the buzz of knobblies on tarmac for a large part of the day, but they did pay dividends in a couple of places. The track NE of 7 was a handful and also 24. The BW to the West of 17 was very clarty. I'm sure there was some hard surface underneath, but it had a 3 inch coating of slop that was just right for getting flicked up and landing in your eye.

It just started raining lightly as the last riders were coming in, but the weather had done very well considering the predicted rain. Looking at Steve Headings route, he seems to have set off in a clockwise direction with a 'full clean up' in mind and gone for every control in his path. Then concentrated on the higher scores and ending up with 10 points less than Andy Conn even though he got the same number of checkpoints.

Andy Conn's win meant that he had got 599 points out of a possible 600 in the EBOR 2004 league. It has also done wonders for his efforts in the tca National Championship too. The event rounded off a superb EBOR league that started way back in March at Wykeham Forest. Steve Willis deserves big thanks from us all, but there is a great team of people who play a huge part every event to make things run so smoothly. The helpers at registration, car parking, start & finish, setting out, collecting controls up. Course Planners, Jens on the wonderfully detailed map preparation, Sue and Dave on the SportIdent, Thanks to you all. So there was a big prize giving ceremony and plenty of people went home with an armful of goodies. That's it, another years worth of EBOR over. The rain got heavier and heavier as we headed home to the West. The saving grace was PK's 'tardis like' Bait box, there was an unlimited supply of ham buns accompanied by jaffa cakes and hot cups of tea. We had left Kendal in the dark and got home well into the night. We'll put it down as being a very good day...

This was also the final event of the 2005 North Yorkshire MBO league. I want to thank the planners who enabled me to ride excellent courses in every event.

Congratulations to the winners who received their tee shirts and prizes at Castle Howard.

Thanks to Westbrook Cycles, York Cycleworks and Karbitz of Boroughbridge for providing prizes for the series.

The events have made a profit of just over £700 for Eborienteers this year as well as a smaller amount for Clok.

I have sent next year’s draft programme to the TCA for approval so if you want to plan an event please let me know. I have got volunteers for 13 events but there are still spaces in December, February and March so please let me know if you want to have a go.

We will still be running a winter MBO series of treasure hunts on Saturday mornings, monthly league events from March to October and a summer series of treasure hunts on Wednesday evenings. There will be a couple of changes. There will be 12 league events next year but only 5 traditional 2-hour forest events plus 5 3-hour bridleway events and a 2-day Mountain Bike Marathon in the Yorkshire Dales in September. Jens Strain will not only be drawing the maps but he is investing in an A3 colour laser printer so no more dodgy photocopies!!

I hope you have enjoyed the events this year and that you will join in again in 2005.

Steve Willis