Returning from the superb john randal/ simon kennett planned 2 hour score MTBO event at Meridian Energy's West Wind wind farm, it was pretty obvious which one of us had stuck to the controls on the roads, and which had taken on all the cross country clippers.
Despite her condition having kept her off a mountain bike for a few months now, Rach couldn't turn down the opportunity to get out onto this private land for this event, a view obviously shared by many as the turnout of over 90 showed. She therefore teamed up with her friend Jude to introduce Jude to MTBO, while I attempted to maintain a position near the top of the men's open field.
With my 2 main competitors running the event, and with round 1's winner Tim Wilding not here, it was going to be a straight fight with vet Ian Paintin. We both headed South along the ridge and collected the first 2 controls within sight of each other, before Ian headed down to pick up a control (33) that I had decided not to get.
4 controls later and I was regretting my game plan - less than a 1/4 of the time used up and over a 1/4 of the controls passed, and with only 1 big climb in the route, I realised it was going to be possible to clear this course! I altered my route to include all of the other controls that I had previously discounted, and other than wasting about 3 minutes looking for 37 - it was in the right place, but was the only control that wasn't immediately visible - was being pretty efficient, and had put a small lead on Ian.
There was an 'allowable route' that took us down to the sea, that was great fun, and now I know where it goes will be worth going back to see if it is 100% rideable. About here I saw Rach and Jude about to walk up the bit I had run down, so I warned them about 37.
A number of controls were laid out along a slushy valley floor, and the out and back nature of this section meant I got to see that I'd put about 6 minutes into Ian, but I was confident he would still clear the course and it would take me more than 6 minutes to get out to 33 and back!
After doing the loop at the very north of the map I figured I would head out to 33 if I had 10 minutes left, and as I came back towards the finish that was exactly what I had, so I screamed through the S/F area where people were already finishing ( sorry guys! ), cocked up leaving, and then got my head down.
Unfortunately 33 turned out to be 12 minutes away, so I got back 2 minutes late, and later on realised I had been so focussed on 33 that I had omitted an easy 11.
Ian missed the 20 pointer near the start in order to get back with 5 seconds to spare, so neither of us quite cleared the course, and he ended up taking the win by 10 points - I reckon I would have cleared it with about 4 mins to spare if I'd got 33 in the first place, so hopefully lesson learned - if you're going to be anywhere near clearing, pick everything up early and drop later ones!
Rachel and Jude were waiting for me at the finish and Rach was Buzzing, she'd had a great time back on 'Petal', and they'd cleared about 2/3rds of the course, having plenty of fun and finishing in the top half of the field ( they actually got 620 )
Results at http://www.mapsport.co.nz/hvoc/hvoc.html, commentary at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=236295939728164, and doubtless there will soon be an article at http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/.
Thanks John, Simon, Michael etc for a great course, and Meridian for the access!
No comments:
Post a Comment