Check out your final standings in the 2011 Cranks Bikes MTBO Super Series.

2012 Memberships Now Due

Monday, 16 January 2012

Just a reminder that renewals for your 2012 Mountain Devils membership is now due.

Use the online membership form below to complete your renewal quickly and easily online.

 

Online Membership Form

Relay concludes NZ MTBO Carnival.

Sunday, 15 January 2012

The successful Otago MTBO Carnival finished with a friendly relay yesterday at the Snow Farm, a ski-field high above Cardrona near Wanaka. The rain cleared, the sun came out, though it was a coolish 6 degrees.  Riders tangled with a spaghetti-like maze of benched ski trails and motor vehicle testing tracks. The race format involved 2 person teams taking turns to do 2 loops each.

NZ top guns Phil Wood and Chris Forne sprinted in just 17 seconds ahead of Alex Randall and Oscar Phillips to win the long men’s course.    Other Australian placing’s in this class included: 4th – Damian Welbourne & Dion Keech; 5th -David Simpendorfer & Paul Darvodelsky; 6th - Ricky Thackray & Ian Dalton.

         

Mary after finishing her 2nd course.                                                       Chris Firman.

Marquita Gelderman and Georgia Whitla won “long women” by 3 minutes ahead of Mary Fien & Melanie Simpson. Chris Firman (Qld) paired up with Jen Graham-Taylor (WA) for a convincing win in long mixed, while the mother and son pair of Carolyn and Tim Jackson took out 3rd.

Andrew Campbell (Far North Queensland) teamed with Tim Hackney for 3rd in medium men, whilst Jean Douglas (NSW) paired with Sally Dickson for 2nd in medium women and Carolyn Matthews and Malcolm Roberts (both NSW) did well to achieve 3rd in the medium mixed category.

In “short women” Victorian duo of Heather Leslie and Peta Whitford placed 2nd while Cath Vero (Alice Springs) teamed with Annie Sanderson for 3rd place.  And guess what?  A bit of a shower overnight, and the next day the hills were coated with a fresh dusting of snow down to 1000m!   

New Zealand is to be congratulated in organising such a fantastic carnival despite the earthquake hardships faced by the Christchurch orienteering community.  They utilised a variety of interesting terrains, some innovative course setting and also had a diverse range of weather conditions which added up to a memorable experience for all riders.

 

Snow farm contouring tracks - map below.

                     

Aussies draw middle event but Kiwis win MTBO Challenge.

Saturday, 14 January 2012

Both sides slipped and slid their way to a draw in the third and final event of the 2012 ANZ MTB-Orienteering Challenge at Wanaka yesterday. So the final result over the three events of the ANZ Challenge was New Zealand 14, Australia 10.

 Carolyn Matthews - part of victorious W40 team in middle

Persistent rain overnight and during the middle distance event near the Clutha River outlet made riding conditions difficult, but riders praised the variety of terrain in the small area. Australia won the tightly contested Womens 40 class for a second time –  winning by 1 minute 57. Christine Brown (NZ) won this class by just 19 secs over Carolyn Jackson but 6th place by Carolyn Matthews helped the Aussies to victory.  In Men’s Open Chris Forne was threatened by top Australian Alex Randall who finished just 3 mins down but the kiwis held the class. Oscar Phillips was 5th, Paul Darvodelsy 7th and Ricky Thackray 10th. In the Women’s Open Marquita Gelderman took her 2nd win by the narrow margin of 21 seconds over Melanie Simpson, but the Aussie depth showed, with Mary Fien 3rd and Jen Garham-Taylor 8th and the class went to Australia. Australia also took Mens 20 and Mens 50 while the hosts won Womens 50, Mens 40 and Mens 60.

Other good Aussie individual results were: M20 Chris Firman 1st, Tim Jackson 2nd, Paulo Jun Alvear Fujii 3rd. M40 - Peter Swanson 4th; M50 - Malcolm Roberts 2nd; W50 - Heather Leslie 4th; M60 - Andrew Campbell 4th; W60 Kathy Liley 1st.

Jwoc multiple representative Chris Firman again displayed his undoubted talent, in winning M20 and being the fastest on course 2, beating all M40 and W21 participants.  Here is his race description: “I had the first start of the day and this meant I had to concentrate on the 1:7,500 “Sticky-Hikuwai” map which had ever changing terrain in its 4 square kilometres. Course 2 was tricky from the get go. The first check point route choice had one of the new symbols that New Zealand invented. A green dash track route, meaning it’s vague and hard to pick up on. The track was more direct and went straight to the first checkpoint. Having managed to navigate my way smoothly through this tricky route, it built up my confidence in the race. The map consisted of a bit of everything. Technical single tracks, mazes of track, dark yellow open areas and a lot more white section of the maps (white meaning you are allowed to ride through the forest on this map.) I used the open areas and white forest section to my advantage giving me and the other riders a lot more route choices and flexibility on cutting the corners. I only made one or two route choices that I felt were not the fastest routes but I executed them well and kept my navigation solid. Very pleased with my ride.”

Another course 2 competitor had a different account. “A real shocker. I forgot to start my GPS, so now I will never know where I went! Lost map contact just after the start triangle, and struggled to relocate - eventually hit the river and worked it out. Another time I rode a long way over the map fold before realising it was a 7,500 scale.”

Riders dried out and relaxed at the historic Cardrona hotel last night. Today they ride a “friendly” relay at the Waiorau cross-country skifield and motor vehicle testing ground, 1675 metres up high on the Pisa Mt Range about 40 km from Wanaka.   With snow forecast last night and today, it should be another memorable and unique experience.

(Based on Michael Wood (NZ) report – additional input Kay Haarsma.)

Provisional team results based on the best two riders from each country.

Full results will be at http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/

M-20: AUS 88-16, NZL no team

M-Open: NZL 104-53, AUS 111-34

M40: NZL 83-41, AUS 98-03

M50: AUS 92-20, NZL 103-29

M60: NZL 73-07, AUS 88-58

W-Open: AUS 90-56, NZL 95-07

W40: AUS 113-39, NZL 115-36

W50: NZL 98-46, AUS 106-46

 

Snow forecast for NZ MTBO event!

Thursday, 12 January 2012

NZ is throwing a little bit of everything at the Aussie MTB orienteers.  Heavy rain is forecast for Friday’s event at Wanaka, whilst up at “Snow Farm”, at Saturday’s relay site, the forecast is a maximum of 1 degree and 8 centimetres of snow!  True!

The 50 strong contingent of Aussie mtb orienteers spent the rest day in Queenstown.  With so much adventure stuff on offer there were actually few who “rested.”  Some chose to practice their bike descent skills on the local mountain, courtesy of repeated chair lift rides to the top, whilst others sought out various water pursuits.

The toughness of the long event on Wednesday was a rude shock for many who hadn’t taken the pre-event course description of “open terrain with significant contour detail” literally. The aptly titled “Linger and Die” map definitely needed mental and physical stamina. Many had almost a 400m climb to the first control! 

Comments from Chris Firman: “The long distance race was harder than any course I have ever competed in. The steepness of hills we had to climb this day was extreme and there were many gratuitous climbs. All who finished this day were impressive. On this bareback mountain everyone struggled. If you weren’t going down you were pedaling up and if you weren’t pedaling you were pushing up, which everyone had to do multiple times.  The descents weren’t always your friend being very tricky to ride down fast and with the loose rock and loose soil it proved challenging for a lot of people.  My goal for the course was to have another clean ride like the sprint. One wrong error could potentially send you down the hill in the wrong direction, and it was everyone’s aim to avoid climbing more then you had to. Similar to the sprint day, I was hesitant double checking the vague tracks on the bare mountain and also pacing myself, knowing I had a lot of climb ahead of me.”

Australian individual highlights were as follows:  Alex Randall placed 3rd in open men despite a puncture with 4 controls to go, while teammates Oscar Phillips and Ricky Thackray were 5th and 6th in the 20 person field.  David Simpfendorfer retired with a broken chain, as did Ian Dalton with tyre issues.

  In open women, on course 2, the ultra-fit Melanie Simpson (122 mins) had a well deserved victory over Maquita Gelderman.  Mary Fein also rode extremely well to place a close 3rd and secure the class victory for the Aussies.  Jenn Graham-Taylor, on the comeback trail after motherhood, persevered well to place 6th out of 14.  The fastest time of the day on course 2 went to M20 Chris Firman with 109 mins, while fellow Queenslander Karl Withers was 2nd (129mins) in M20, with Victorian youngster Tim Jackson 3rd.  M40 winner (also C2) Damian Welbourne actually enjoyed the tough conditions to win in 110 mins, just a minute ahead of Greg Barbour, a dual foot and mtbo world champs Kiwi representative.  Remarkably Damian rode the entire event with his front forked locked out, after forgetting to re-engage it after a bitumen climb to the first control.

Course 3 saw two victories for the reliable duo of Carolyn Jackson (W40) – 104 mins, and Marcus Roberts (M50) – 99 mins.  While Carolyn had a 13 minute win Marcus had less than a minute up his sleeve over Kiwi Phil White.   On course 4 Victorian Heather Leslie was Australia’s only placegetter, with her 3rd in W50. Peta Whitford was unable to start and reserve Carolyn Cusworth bravely stepped up into the W50 team and was thrilled to finish.  In the ultra-competitive M60 class, David Firman (Qld) and Leigh Privett (Vic) rode well in a strong field for 4th and 5th respectively.  Course 5 saw evergreen Kathy Liley again take the honours in W60.

Some of the riders will go into the 3rd of the challenge events, the middle distance, aiming to achieve a clean sweep trifecta of wins.  These are New Zealanders Chris Forne (men’s open), Ed Corey-Wright (M16) Bruce Meder (M60) and Aussies Chris Firman (M20), Carolyn Jackson (W40) and Kathy Liley (W60). 

Sprint map below

 

Hot, Hard & Hilly for Mt Bikers in NZ

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

   

Elite victor Chris Forne                Elite Aussie Jenn Graham-Taylor

NZ maintained its lead today, in the second event of the 2012 MTB-Orienteering Challenge at Alexandra. The long distance courses in steep hills across the river were run in sweltering conditions, with several errors and retirements in the field of 150.

 Australia won the Mens 20 and Womens Open again, narrowly lost Womens 40 by 59 seconds, but picked up Mens 50 after the leading kiwi Rob Garden visited a wrong control point. New Zealand retained Mens Open with Chris Forne leading the field by an incredible 20 minutes. Also both veteran womens classes, plus Mens 40 and 60. Australia’s Melanie Simpson was the fastest Open Woman, 4 minutes ahead of top kiwi Marquita Gelderman.

Riders finishing on the banks of the Manuherikia River were too exhausted to comment on Joe Sherriff’s mapping and courses, but as they recovered the extent of his hard work over many months received recognition. And also the work of his partner Jo Wilson, who had installed a 4-metre control flag next to the town clock on the cliffs overlooking the town.

New Zealand now has a lead of 10-6 going into the final event, a middle distance at Wanaka on Friday. Winning times will be up to 50 minutes depending on class.

(Michael Wood, NZ)

Provisional team results based on the best two riders from each country.

Full results willat http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/

M-20: AUS 234-50, NZL no team

M-Open: NZL 245-09, AUS 284-50

M40: NZL 223-49, AUS 231-23

M50: AUS 211-46, NZL 255-47

M60: NZL 175-25, AUS 212-51

W-Open: AUS 253-01, NZL 275-08

W40: NZL 249-02, AUS 250-01

W50: NZL 237-07, AUS 250-41

Recent News
2012 Memberships Now Due Monday, 16 January 2012
Relay concludes NZ MTBO Carnival. Sunday, 15 January 2012
Aussies draw middle event but Kiwis win MTBO Challenge. Saturday, 14 January 2012
Snow forecast for NZ MTBO event! Thursday, 12 January 2012
Hot, Hard & Hilly for Mt Bikers in NZ Wednesday, 11 January 2012
NZ takes lead in MTBO Challenge. Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Australian MTBO team for NZ Challenge announced. Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Killingworth OANSW DuO Event Registration Open Saturday, 26 November 2011
MT BIKE UPDATE Friday, 11 November 2011
SS7/8 Results & Final 2011 Cranks Bikes SuperSeries Scores Avaliable Friday, 28 October 2011
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NSW Results at Aus & Oceania MTBO Champs Monday, 24 October 2011
Melanie Simpson and Ricky Thackray Top the 2011 National MTBO Series Monday, 24 October 2011 The 2011 MTBO National League concluded at the NSW Championships held last weekend.
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MTBO Championships summary Sunday, 16 October 2011