SS1 & SS2 Event Wrapup
Thursday, 31 March 2011
The first Super Series weekend of the year saw more than 80
riders enjoying the trails of Wingello in surprisingly dry and good conditions
after an ominously wet week in Sydney. On Saturday, Marcel van Schie set some
fantastic, truly middle distance, courses on Wingello South, with an
innovative use of “rides” through the forest. Some were certainly more rideable
than others! They were almost certainly the best route choice on the short, zig
zag legs, but it took a bit of brain rewiring to shove the bike through the
thick grass on the edge of the track and commit to a rough ride or push through
the gap in the forest. And just when you thought it was all done, the last
control required some more thinking and finding, and caught more than a few people
out. Standing around the download were lots of happy faces, not too many muddy
bikes and some brand new converts to MTBO.
Unfortunately, the organiser (not Marcel or I) forgot to
ensure that the key MTBO rules were on display at registration … and so a
number of riders were observed to have either taken their bikes off the mapped
tracks (or “rides”), or left their bikes to run down to that trickily placed
last control.
MTBO Rule reminder #1: riding through forest (marked green or
white) is forbidden, and can lead to us losing access to areas. If it’s not
marked as a track or yellow on the map, just don’t go there.
The Forest Camp provided a great base for those camping
Saturday night, as well as the Mountain Devils AGM, a quiet drink and plenty of
vigorous post mortem discussions. The social scene at the Camp added immensely
to the event atmosphere.
The long distance course on Sunday started with a “scatter”
(free order), and the range of choices of controls visited made the course
setter very happy. Just before the start, some new MTBOers were treated to a
special briefing from a Past President, breezing in unexpectedly in a very
shiny ute – thanks very much to Geoff Charnock for providing this unexpected
service. The first riders to quickly gather the requisite punches were some
Course 5 youngsters, followed by a flying Rob Prentice, who took about 12
minutes to visit 5 controls... A few riders came through the map change proudly
announcing that they’d managed to ride every bit of single track. Not the fastest
approach, but they certainly had the biggest grins. A couple of riders came in
from the “other” direction, having found the fastest route choice home from no.
8.
The line course section also provided some fun single track
options, and some a little more adventurous... Sadly, Course 1 had a late
control change that meant Dave Simpfendorfer’s winning time of 95 minutes was a
bit under the odds. Simon Nott and Rob Prentice also made Course 3 look a bit
underdone … or maybe they should be riding Course 2!
On the whole, there seemed to be lots of very satisfied
riders rolling into Forest Camp, including some with skin off, Hilary Dyer
making it all the way around Course 1 despite a heavy dose of ‘flu, plus the 2
girls arriving right on course closure time and still smiling after 3.5 hours
of “don’t even ask” navigational adventures.
On a more serious side, there were a couple of comments
about “aggro” at controls in the first ‘scatter’ section. It’s pretty unusual
to have to wait at an MTBO control, so if it happens to you, please be patient
and pleasant (as most people were) – remember, there’s no big prizes on the
line here!
Thank you very much to David West for an incredible amount
of work, field checking, editing maps, checking maps, getting maps printed,
processing entries, troubleshooting SI, putting out controls, setting up and
removing start/finishes, dealing with unhappy neighbours, running the AGM,
keeping proceedings from running dry and displaying the kilt. Thank you also to
Michael Roylance for SI programming, as well as Rowan Bouttell and Nick
Dellagiacoma for running SI at the events, as well as the many people who
helped with control collection after each event, those who helped run
registration, and those who helped pack up and transport the equipment.
Mary Fien
Photos taken by Dayle Green -
Click on the photo for a larger version
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