Despite the threatening weather of the day before a good crowd turned up for the 2011 MTBNav-Bush and Foot events out near Ellendale in Southern Tasmania.
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| Photo Courtesy - John Dawson |
Warm congratulations go out to Darryl Smith and Grant Dixon for achieving first place overall in the Bike Male section of the MTBNav-Bush. They and the teams of Jon McComb and John Whittington, Matthew Patten and Ross Bugg, Jemery Day and Jeff Dunn, and Paul Pacque and Nigel Davies gained the maximum 1900 points in under four hours.
Darryl and Grant were able to enjoy refreshments early with 59 minutes to spare. Just over 32 minutes separated the first five Teams, with Darryl and Grant home from Jon and John by 3.5 minutes, and then just 9 minutes to Matthew and Ross with Matthew riding single speed for some three hours after his derailleur disintegrated. Who needs gears?
Two Teams went oh so close to gaining all 1900 points, that of Brendan Hey, Kari Eronen and John Alderdice gaining 1860 points, and that of Jules Evans and Roger Jackson finishing on 1830. In Mixed Bike the two Teams finished with only 70 points difference, John Dawson and Kim Harris heading David Loveridge and Marjorie Morgan. Marjorie managed to somehow destroy her saddle along the way, while John kept crashing and breaking various bits of his bike.
In four hour Foot Male the juniors came to the fore as Brodie Nankervis and Jade Kerber showed everyone a clean pair of heals with 1610 points, leading Gary Carroll and Mike Fuller on 1450. Both Teams scored higher than some riding Teams, an outcome I was very pleased with because the course design included many short cuts available to walkers, but not to riders. It worked!
Christine and David Marshall again demonstrated good route planning by amassing 1350 points in the Mixed Foot from Rod and Bev Miller, and in Foot Female, the three lady Team of Elizabeth Hey, Sarah Woods and Jennifer Hey achieved just 50 points more than the four lady team of Melanie Hawkes, Sue Kerr, Dorothy McCartney and Phillipa Terry.
Well done to everyone who enjoyed the four hour event, including those who took a dip in the creek along the way. I trust bike repairs run smoothly.
In the short and sharp two hour event, four of the five Teams contested the Bike Mixed category. Mike Dowling and Sue Hancock amassed 880 points to show Mark West and Cathy McComb a muddy wheel by only 60 points. Mike rode Sue’s bike, and Sue rode daughter Anna’s bike. John and Val Brammall were a mere 30 points back. Coming-in fourth were newcomers Helen Peters and Clinton Luckock who came along just to see how these events go. When I invited then to participate officially they didn’t hesitate, and did well seeing it was the first time they had ever seen a rogaining map. Please come again.
Our sole Team in the Foot Female part of the two hour were two highly skilled junior orienteers in Anna Dowling and Nicola Marshall. With 610 points they really did demonstrate good route choice and covered the ground quickly.
Well done to everyone who enjoyed the two hour event. Click here to download results.
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| Photo Courtesy - John Dawson |
Organiser's Note
Saturday presented Robyn, Sally and I with a few showers as we placed the thirty-two controls and prepared the assembly area. At least we missed the heavy showers of the city. While it was looking a bit muddy for the event, the tracks still offered good riding, and the forests good walking. It was a relief of sorts when Sunday dawned dry with a near perfect temperature for rogaining.
In planning the event I intentionally placed controls reasonably close so as to give Teams a lot of options with their course and have the navigation side need a bit more thinking to decide the optimum route. I wanted faster riding Teams to scoop the pool, and five did, and I wanted the walking Teams to be able to visit lots of controls.
I thought the faster riding Teams might finish with half an hour to spare, but the first Team had nearly an hour up their sleeve, and the first four had over thirty minutes. I put this down to changes I made to the course – because of timber harvesting in the NW and SE parts of the map I shrunk the course area and removed four controls to avoid those spots.
My personal thanks to Sally Wayte and Robyn Chapman for all the help on the Saturday and Sunday, and in the lead-up, to Gayle West and the mums of the OT Juniors for the wonderful refreshments at the conclusion, and to the many participants who helped collect controls and pack away the gear. Your support in those ways made my day more relaxing. Thanks also to Ride Bellerive for the support through vouchers and promotion, and to landowners Mr and Mrs Twinning, Norske Skog and Forestry Tasmania. I very much appreciated seeing those who came to the event from Launceston. And finally thanks to Orienteering Tasmania for the loan of the electronic and other gear and for the map printing.
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| Photo Courtesy - John Dawson |
Our entry this year was 62 participants, two more than in 2010. It looks like the 2012 event will be on 18/11/12, but watch the Rogaining Tasmania website. Thanks for coming, hope washing the bike, clothes and yourselves went well, and hope to see you at an MTBNav next year.
Mark Hey
Click here to download results.