Soudley 2 hour score was the first event of the Winter Wanderland series. The event area was an untried part to the East of The Forest of Dean, from Soudley and Blakeney east to Cannop Ponds west. Initially the terrain looked fast and very ridable, with many forest tracks well surfaced and marked. The initial concern was that some riders might return having netted all controls in under 2 hours but after several recces, clocking the miles to get round steep valleys and toiling up and down the hills, it was clear that this was unlikely to happen!

Having two of us checking control sites and routes certainly helped. OS mapped Forest tracks are notorious for being either non-existent or just plain wrong, depending on forestry work in the area. I was worried about SI unit security so we put out the controls by stealth as light was fading the night before. Trying to make the site visible was difficult without advertising the control was there to non-event people. I was conscious of several riders entering for the first time and didn't want them to treasure hunt each box.

The number of pre-entries was good and coupled with EOD plus a few who rode round non-competitive we have over 45 riders. We welcomed some foot orienteers attracted to the event by their good knowledge of the area for orienteering, lured in by targeted promotion of the event. How would their forest knowledge translate onto a 1:25000 OS map though? During control site checking I saw several wild boar and heard them in about three different places on one ride round, grunting and wallowing in the mud.

Results revealed that despite my fears it was indeed very hard to clear all controls in 2 hours.

Max: 400 points

Men:

1st Ifor Powell (M40) 307
2nd Michael Holloway (M21) 290
3rd Nick Dallimore (M60) 276
4th James Brown (M21) 266
5th Ian Cartwright (M50) 247
21st John Parfitt (M70) 166

Women
12th Caroline Craig (W21) 207
13th Vanessa Lawson (W40) 200
28th Hanneke van der Werf (W50) 136
29th Shirley Robinson (W60) 126

Generation

37th Bryn Hall/Ryan Hall 70

All guaranteed ridable tracks were marked on the map – any diversion off from these was at rider's peril but they couldn't come back grumbling because they were advised not to use them!

No less than 3 dibbers were lost during the event. Two were found, one picked up by a walker, the other in a pocket all the time and the third one never found. A 4th was lost later clearing up. Next event we should remind people to attach it to some part of their body to prevent this. Two scores were calculable from the Garmin traces but in future anyone who
has the misfortune to lose a dibber will get a Non-Competitive score due to inaccuracies with data from sources other than SI.

With hindsight and looking at the SI boxes used, we didn't really need the controls out to the NE of Soudley. Next day I had great fun collecting the remaining controls in pouring rain before the boar ate them.

We a back in the Forest again in the New Year just up the road based from the Cannop Cycle Centre and hope to see you all again then.

Gill Stott