Event Details
Club: | Midlands MBO |
Event Name: | Milton Mayhem |
Date: | 23/04/17 |
Format: | MBO Score |
Mapping: | Ordnance Survey |
Time Limit: | 3 hours |
National League: | - |
League: | Midlands MBO Series 2017 (Round 3 of 11) |
Electronic Punch: | SportIdent |
Event Report
Milton Mayhem event report – April 23rd
After a few concerning days prior to the event, with the reluctance of people to enter early, the promise of decent weather seemed to bring you out and we needed up with 49 riders on the day. We knew a couple of week before the event date that the weather forecast as good, so we expected the tracks should be dry and fast – but even those which can remain wet some summers are already dry.
We were at a new venue in the village on Milton – not far from previous event centres in this popular riding area but gave us the opportunity to use a few tracks differently, in addition to agreeing access to some private areas that do get ridden by the locals but officially remain off limits – if only we could persuade Calke Abbey to let us have access to more of their tracks – here’s hoping. We managed to set a challenging course where one objective was to give everyone a navigational choice wherever possible – which also gave them the opportunity to ride all the trails in the area. We must have succeeded as people kept saying “there were too many route choices”.
The unfortunate part of the day was that many riders headed off in a similar direction – only to find that some rat had removed their first checkpoint, frustrating for both seasoned riders who worry they’re not looking for the right marker, more so, for new riders who just get utterly confused.
The rest of the day went much better, the weather was brilliant, everyone returned safely, lots of positive comments from riders, especially from the new riders who were having a day off from running orienteering – and promising to come back with more knowledge of what’s required – and to be better prepared.
The day was successfully rounded off with lots of cakes for all the participants and a late finish collecting in the checkpoints – Lisa managed to clear the central area in a couple of hours whilst Bryan collected all those around the outside covering over double the distance – most of it by car!
Thanks for all who made the event so successful – the donations for the food enable us give £40 each to the village hall for their improvement projects and to the air ambulance.
Rider report
Many years ago, my old MTB club used to run one of its regular weekend rides from Ticknall, just 4Km from the event HQ at Milton. Studying the map, I was looking forward to the advantage of "local knowledge". Then I traced the old route and realised our 2hr club ride covered only a tiny proportion of the map area, so It was clear that I wasn't going to be able to cover the whole map. The London marathon commentator described the weather as perfect for running. It was equally fantastic for riding, cool, sunny and following a prolonged dry spell the trails were dry and fast.
Like many competitors I was drawn North and East from the start, tempted by the row of high value checkpoints on the relative flat lands. My first checkpoint was number 10, no problem. Unfortunatlely, the next control, number 9 had been pinched, maybe the Farmer objected to a checkpoint on his gate, it's annoying as it takes time to search, but worse it makes you second guess whether you are in the right place, how long should you waste looking? It hits your confidence. Next up was the 30 pointer, number 8. Lisa warned us at the start that the Farmer had ploughed the field and obliterated the bridleway, she was right, it was practically unrideable, I ended up following the tractor tracks, which were rideable but didn't go in the right direction so I went a long way round the field, I think walking the direct route would have been quicker. The checkpoint was located in the next field, on a log, a little way off the trail, I was concentrating on riding the tricky little trail and rode right past it, two fields later I realised my error and had to back track. Not a great start. The rest of the event went more smoothly but I was lured too far East and ran short of time, needing to cut and run home up the side of Foremark reservoir missing a huge number of checkpoints on the way. I should have stayed closer to the event centre, oh well. 50km and 700m of climbing in 2hrs 57min was a great workout and a massive bonus was that the bike was clean. In the whole event the only mud I encountered was on a bridleway in Robin Wood, amazing. Generally the event was really well organised and it was a great area of rolling countryside with a good network of bridleways which has been well reconsidered. Lisa and Bryan did a fantastic job organising the event. My only suggestions for improvement would be to make the checkpoints more obvious, use an feature that stands out with a piece of flapping tape which is visible from both directions and maybe blow up the map a little to 1:40,000 to make it a bit easier to read. There is nothing worse than working your butt off to get to the right point then wasting minutes trying to find the actual checkpoint, it adds an element of luck to an event which should be all about skill and fitness.