Cropton

2 hr MBO Score Event

Sat 4th June 2005

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• Splits
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Comments

I hope you enjoyed the different event area this year. John Butler planned another excellent course and, by using both halves of the forest, there were lots of different route choices. Sorry about the problems some of you had with a landowner at #5. I visited her on Sunday morning to apologise. John and I thought it was a forest road which joined up with the bridleways. It turns out to be a private road/public footpath for 300m and she wouldn't have minded if she had been asked in advance!! Control 3 was 10m from the tree that had been tagged with red tape so please let me know if you couldn't find it so that you can have the 5 points. However, by the time Steve Langron went to collect it, the wire had been cut and the SI box was missing. Fortunately Steve managed to find it in a bed of nettles so saving the event £70!! Thanks again to the willing band of helpers who make these events possible. 150 riders again so they must be making you welcome! I cycled a similar route to Paul Allen but he has written a far better account than I could, which is attached below. You can see a full range of pictures and the results and splits on his excellent web page at http://www.mintcakemtb.co.uk/newsarchive2005/croptonreport05.html

The next league event is on the Masham Moors on Saturday 2nd July. There aren't any toilets so please at the event car park on Nutwith Common so please use the facilities in Masham before you arrive Sue Adams is taking the entries again so please make her job easier by entering more than one day before the event. If you are emailing don't forget to include your Class, Full Name, Town, TCA (and SI) numbers.

The details, results and split times of all our MBO events are on the TCA, Ebor, Clok and Mintcake web pages as well as a copy of the Summer MBO Treasure Hunt series which continue on Wednesday 15th June at Hovingham. www.trailquest.co.uk www.eborienteers.org.uk www.clok.org.uk

I hope to see you at one of our events this year.

Cheers
Steve

Paul Allen's Report

It was a gloomy morning on Saturday but the forecast promised it would improve for the afternoon. This is exactly what happened, a light shower came during registration, then the sun peeped out a couple of times during the event itself. The temperature remained warm ensuring all that was needed was a short sleeve top so that the midges could feast at the start.

The map covered a considerably bigger area then past Cropton events. Both East and West woods were used from Rosedale to Newton Dale, with a good spread of points from north to south. The start / finish location tended to invite an anti-clockwise loop leading to a quick and easy finish down the gentle sloping forest tracks.

The first 4 controls 11 16 8 and 21 only took 16 mins to gather then onto some long road work to 29. Things weren't all they appeared at 29 as the track deviated SE up a muddy slippery hill to the actual junction, but the main of it was good going on tarmac. There was a convoy of about 20 motorbikes on the road heading East from Cropton.

The BW north of 28 was littered with Teflon tree roots to catch out the front wheel. This is a cracking track in the dry as it weaves in and out of the rhododendron bushes, across an open field, then up some tree lined single track on the way to 13. Lots of gates and junctions around 25 and I believe the track NE from 5 inadvertently turned out to be a private road.

Now I look more carefully at the route needed to gather 24, 20 and 10 on the way to 30, they don't look too bad and mainly tarmac, but on Saturday I chose to go round by 15 and 19 which brought 20 less points. I was also caught out by not noticing the track heading due south just to the SW of control 30. It is rather well camouflaged by the purple Forestry border.

The overgrown track straight from 14 to 30 was soft, slow, uphill, wet and quite a challenge. These last few controls had taken slightly longer than expected which meant there wasn't really enough time left to get the best route back to finish. Something like 27 12 26 23 and 1 would have been nice but I had to make do with a rather rushed 27 7 26 and 1, facing the severe penalties of being 12 mins late.

All good fun though and a very well planned event with pinpoint accurate control locations and a wide selection of tracks. 26 was in the middle of a quagmire and the downhill finish to control 1 and beyond was very exciting indeed. Thanks to all involved, the long list of Steve Willis' loyal and devoted helpers.

Biathlon Results