Event Details
Club: | BM MBO |
Event Name: | Event 6 - The Tywi Forest |
Date: | 09/06/19 |
Format: | MBO Score |
Mapping: | Ordnance Survey |
Time Limit: | 5 Hour |
National League: | - |
League: | Black Mountains MBO 2019 (Round 6 of 10) |
Electronic Punch: | SportIdent |
Event Report
Whilst the 2008 Polaris was based in the same area, the majority of the participants hadn’t visited this area previously, yet alone explored the area on mountain bikes. The participants covered Tywi Forest in the upper reaches of the Tywi River, three stunningly beautiful valleys and the infamous Devil’s Staircase! Potential routes included minor roads, forest fire roads, forest tracks, bridleways, byways and ORPAs.
Gary had explored the area on five weekends in the eight months leading up to the event and had identified which rights of way were able to be included and which were ‘no go’ areas. Some potential routes had to be ‘opened up’ with a significant amount of time and sawing/chopping/ pruning to provide more route choices and ‘links’ between the more obvious ‘open’ tracks.
Gary 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 90km and 2500m ascent to collect all 28 checkpoints – too much for even a 5-hour event!
Rainfall in the days leading up to the event caused some concern as one of the tracks likely to be used by the participants criss-crossed the upper reaches of the River Tywi. The river was in spate when Gary put out the CPs on Saturday, but the water levels had dropped significantly by Sunday morning and the weather forecast was dry for the first few hours of the event. As a result, Gary decided not to implement Plan B which would have entailed making sections of the track Out of Bounds.
A combination of the undulating terrain, the wet ground (bridleways and fords) and the cold snap (hailstones in June!) resulted in a few riders coming back very fatigued and cold. However, the tiredness and the cold were soon mitigated with hot tea and warmth in the Abergwesyn Hall!
Whilst Ifor Powell collected 26 of the 28 checkpoints and collected the most points (550), he returned 11 minutes late. Andy Gregg collected two fewer checkpoints (collected 540) and returned to the finish six minutes late. Andy Gregg took the honours with a score of 533 (from possible 600) to Ifor Powell’s 530. Nick Dallimore probably had the most efficient route as he collected 23 checkpoints to collect 520 points and returned nine minutes early. Whilst Ian Cartwright also collected 520 points, Nick pipped him to third place as Ian finished seven minutes late. Each of the riders collected different checkpoints and took different route choices/directions.
For information, Ifor rode 79km and 1800km ascent (from Strava).
The podium finishers and age category winners from the event were as follows:
*Overall
First overall: Andy Gregg 533
Second overall: Ifor Powell 530
Third overall: Nick Dallimore 520
Fourth overall: Ian Cartwright 511
*Male (M)
M21: Harry Kingston 447
M40: Andy Gregg 533
M50: Ifor Powell 530
M60: Nick Dallimore 520
M70: Mike Wimpenny 380
*Ladies (W)
First: Naomi Malkin 346
Second: Ro Cole 340
Third: Clare de Faye 290
W21: Naomi Malkin 346
W40: Christine Farr 270
W50: Ro Cole 340
W60: Clare de Faye 300
W70: Jill Manning 230
The tired event participants had plenty to discuss after finishing. Everybody enjoyed discovering and exploring the new area. Some quotes included:
*Anthony Bowmer: ‘Mega event Gary Davies, fabulous area, even the scenery on route to the venue was brilliant. Really like the long format. Thank you everyone who helped put this together.’
*Andy Gregg: ‘Another vote of many thanks to Gary Davies for putting on a stunning event in a superb area, and finding some proper full on gnarly MTB tracks to ride. I am knackered, but those multiple fords way over the bottom bracket will stick in the memory banks for a long time. I'd never have a go at that sort of thing normally, but when you race, you just go for it, keep pedalling, hope it doesn't get up to the top tube and get through. Thanks also to Siôn James for the help and the many assistants back at base. It was so good to get inside, warm up and be given food. Thank you all.’
*Christine Farr: ‘Great event thanks everyone for organising and supporting - could see there was a huge amount of work involved!’
*Nick Dallimore: ‘Great V challenging event. Brings back memories of the old days when all trailquests were 5 hrs.’
Thank you also to those who put some money in the donations pot. We collected £93 which was split between the Abergwesyn Village Hall Donation Box and the Air Ambulance.
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 (registration/download/catering), Sion James (series organiser/planning support/event infrastructure), Malcolm and Valerie Evans (catering), & Sion, Dave Uglow, Chris Porter, Ifor Powell, Gill Stott and Andy Stott for collecting CPs.