Event Details
Club: | SWEMBO |
Event Name: | SW League 6 - Quantock Hills |
Date: | 02/11/14 |
Format: | MBO Score |
Mapping: | Ordnance Survey |
Time Limit: | 3 hours |
National League: | - |
League: | Southwest MBO Score League 2014 (Round 6 of 6) |
Electronic Punch: | SportIdent |
Event Report
On an area like the Quantocks, the physical placing of the Check Points is always going to be tough, with this in mind I tried to plan the course so that a good percentage of CP's were easily accessible using the limited road network, while at the same time trying not to promote the use of the said roads as an optimum route. I hope this was acheived.
With the clocks having just gone back, and the shorter days, I decided to place the CP's over two days instead of the massive effort of getting them all out in one day. this seemed to work well, with the the remoter CP's being biked out on the Friday, and the more accessible ones being put out by little shuttle trips to and from the car on the Saturday.
All ran smoothly, with the exception of a little incident involving a high verge and a low bumper, but hey, what are zip ties really meant for !!?!!
With one of the hottest Halloween's on record the weather promised to be ideal for our MBO. The torrential downpour through the night prior to the event only resulted in a few of the lower tracks becoming a little muddy, although judging by the state of some of the finishers you might have thought they'd gotten off and rolled around in it !!!
The event started with the hill cloaked in a layer of fog, but as the day progressed, as forecasted, this soon burnt off leaving a glorious sunny day. The long trek to the Start was compensated by the reduction of climb during race time. We chose this option over extending race time, I hope the was appreciated.
As predicted, most riders headed off to the East before splitting to either do the Great Wood loop clockwise or anticlockwise before heading to the West of the area with the numerous steep wooded combes on the open moorland. Some riders were caught out by the many smaller valleys branching off the coombes resulting in some prolonged disorientation!!!
We had planned the course to 'encourage' riders to ride some of the exhilarating singletrack descents down through the combes, but with a lot of riders underestimating the ferociousness of some of the climbs earlier on, their rides had to be cut short before they reached them in order to get back in time.
With all the riders back safe, re-energizing with coffee and cake, it just left us to calculate the results and present the trophies for both the event, and the league. The winners of the event were as follows:
M21 - Jon Dallimore, M40 - Mark Stodgell, M50 - Nick Dallimore, M60 - Mike Wimpenny, W21 - Isabel Boyd, W50 - Caroline Dallimore, Mixed Pairs - Janet Buroughes & Matt Jepson, and Male Pairs - Tim Redman & Stuart Ball (although we mistakenly gave the trophies to Ned Kelly & Allan Orton, oops, sorry!!!)
The League winners were Nick Dallimore in the Solo Category, and Janet Burroughes & Matt Jepson in the Pairs Category
As the last of the riders left for home, it just let us to clean the hall and collect in the CP's. We had hoped to get have them all collected in on the day, but impending darkness put pay to that, so an extra trip the following day was called for.
Thanks to you all for coming, and making the effort of putting on the event worth it, and to my little band of helpers, Faye, Rich and Elliot for making the event run smoothly. We hope to see you all in the new year when the new league kicks off in the dark!!!
oh, and thanks for all the birthday wishes, I really enjoyed wearing my badge, NOT!!!!
Will.