Event Details
Club: | BM MBO |
Event Name: | Black Mountains MBO 17 - Event 8 Trecastle near Brecon |
Date: | 17/09/17 |
Format: | MBO Score |
Mapping: | Ordnance Survey |
Time Limit: | 3 1/2 |
National League: | - |
League: | Black Mountains MBO (Round 8 of 10) |
Electronic Punch: | No |
Event Report
Gary Davies (Event Organiser) introduced the participants to a new area for this event which included the Usk Reservoir, Mynydd Myddfai, Mynydd Bach Trecastell and Glasfynydd Forest. The area is located at the north-western part of the Brecon Beacons National Park (BBNP). In addition to the PRoWs, permission and licenses had been granted from the BBNP Authority and Natural Resources Wales respectively to extend the network of potential route choices, particularly on the higher ground.
There was a significant amount of rain in the days preceding the event which made the tracks through the fields and mountain tops particularly slow and energy sapping. The organiser had deliberately planned the event to make it impossible to clear even in dry conditions and to increase the number of potential route options. It would have taken approximately 60km and 1500m ascent to collect all the 25 checkpoints. (They took seven hours to put out!)
Ifor Powell took the honours with a score of 433 (from possible 510) to Ian Cartwright’s 398 and Michael Holloway’s 390. This meant that the 2017 Black Mountains Series winner would come down to the last event in the series which is four weeks later on 15 October.
Both Ifor and Ian have now collected maximum scores in four events each and there are six counters for the series. There is now only a difference of 40 points between the two before the last event, that's a gap of just one 20 point CP across the whole series!
One of the reasons for Ifor Powell’s success was down to route choice because it minimised the length ridden on the slow saturated grass tracks on the mountain tops. Ifor covered 56km with 1200m ascent in 3hrs 35minutes.
The podium finishers and age category winners from the event were as follows:
Male (M)
First overall - Ifor Powell 433 (1000)
Second overall - Ian Cartwright 398 (919)
Third overall - Michael Holloway 390 (901)
M21 - Michael Holloway 390 (901)
M40 - Ifor Powell 433 (1000)
M50 - Ian Cartwright 398 (919)
M60 - Nick Dallimore 375 (866)
Ladies:
First overall - Nicky Griffin 280 (647)
Second overall - Hanneke van der Werf 235 (543)
Third overall - Caroline Dallimore 220 (508)
W40 - Angela Boakes 160 (370)
W50 - Nicky Griffin 280 (647)
W60 - Caroline Dallimore 220 (508)
Mixed pair category (X50): Angela and Tony Brand-Barker took the honours with a points total of 320.
The rivalry between Mark Rowley (385), Richard Haynes (380) and Sion James (378) was good as ever. However Richard having misjudged the distance was left with a painful return over Mynydd Bach Trecastell coming back 15 minutes late, 430 points down to 380 ouch!
Thank you also to those who put some money in the donations pot, we collected £81 which will be gifted to the BBNPA Public Rights of Way fund to help with trail maintenance, with the main priority to try and sort all those pesky gate latches!
The event organiser thanked those that helped with the event organising, catering, technical support, community hall setup/clean-up and collecting the checkpoints. He couldn’t do it without you! Particular big thanks to Dawn Davies.