Sunday, April 10, 2011

Mountain Bike Orienteering

One of the guys at work sent round a link to Scottish Mountain Bike Orienteering website who are running 6 events, one a month over the summer months. The first was today in the Pentlands. I would probably have entered in a team with Neil, but he was unavailable and I was thinking of entering on my own for a laugh, but somehow talked Rosie into being my team-mate (it was surprisingly easy). She's just got a new bike, so it was a good excuse to take that out.

The idea is that the organisers put out 30 checkpoints and you have 3 hours to go to as many checkpoints as you can, each checkpoint is worth a certain number of points and the individual/team with the most number of points wins (teams have to stay together, so if anything it's a bit harder than being out on your own). If you take longer than 3 hours you start to lose points and after about 10 minutes, that loss becomes pretty rapid.

So Rosie and I rocked up at Currie Rugby Club in Balerno, unsure of what to expect. We had the vague notion that we would just go for however many points we could get and not worry too much if we came last. Rosie reckoned we would be pretty good at map reading, but we weren't really too sure about the first checkpoint, so that wasn't a good start. In fact, we didn't even find the first one we headed for (it was pretty close to the start, so we thought we'd just pick it up on the way back. Suffice to say that didn't happen). We cycled on a bit, down a path which was marked on the map, which was actually quite a nice little descent with a rooty technical bit at the bottom (Rosie didn't think so) and onto the water of Leith where we got our first checkpoint.

The section checkpoint came halfway up a little steep section off the water of Leith, (another bit that would make a nice descent). We spent a bit of time running about trying to find the checkpoint and discovered it hidden behind a bridge. This is when we realised, part of the challenge is finding the things as well as navigating between them and cycling up and down hills.

From there, up another horrible climb (would also make a decent descent) where we got checkpoint number 3 and eventually up through a farm onto a well deserved descent. We picked up another checkpoint and headed back to the water of Leith for our 5th. (Another deviously placed one that had us running around like lunatics). From there, we followed the water of Leith back down to Colinton and began the climb back up towards the Pentlands. After a bit of searching we did eventually find another checkpoint and continued up the road to where a crossing was marked over the bypass. Turns out, this road is marked on both google maps and the O/S maps, but doesn't exist. We eventually found a way over the bypass, but had lost a lot of time and were a bit lost. This is where things started to turn to shit. Once over the bypass we struggled up a path, then up a steep hill which we had to push up, eventually after much effort coming out on the path from Bonaly up to the Pentlands.

This is a path I've had a run in with before and I hate it, so more pushing up to the top of that, then another push/struggle through a forest with mainly tree roots under foot/tire. By this point Rosie was more than a little puffed out, but I urged her on. We managed to get another checkpoint as we left the forest and headed back down onto a proper road. The plan was to get another two checkpoints on the way back, but time was running out and we decided to take the shortest route downhill and head back up the water of Leith to the finish.

We arrived back at the finish 10 minutes late which cost us 20 points. Overall, it was a good day out and I really enjoyed it, but was a little knackered. I think I could have gone a bit further, and I can't imagine the state I would have been in if Neil was there as whoever is leading the climbs tends to set the pace a bit hard.

With the full results now out, I'm glad to say while we were pretty poor, we weren't the worst, coming joint second last in our class.

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