Vic MTBO Series winds up at Muckleford
Monday, 27 November 2017
Vic MTBO Series #5 Muckleford The forest was starting to dry out
after some exceptionally green growth in early Spring. A downpour
earlier in the week freshened things up but the forecast was for a
warm weekend as Helen and I set out to set the controls in the
Muckleford Forest. The map was last used for MTBO in 2012 and has
become popular with the local MTB groups. There are now lots of
single tracks, some less visible than others. Three trips to
Muckleford for remapping with my Garmin tracker assisted by Strava
helped me locate new tracks. These can easily be missed unless you
know what you are looking for. (Strava
is a website and mobile app used to track activity via satellite
navigation. It is a good site to collect gpx files of routes which
can be uploaded onto OCAD).
Peter Hill lives near the map and was
happy to take up my offer to vet the map and courses. He assured me
that there are more tracks out there. Peter did a great job with his
amendments and course suggestions. The new tracks helped to give
riders more route choice options and gave some nice riding areas.
Peter and Judy Hill put some if the
Nillumbik Emus organisers up for the night. This was greatly
appreciated as Helen and I didn’t finish setting the courses and
digging the dunny loos till 7:30 pm.
The attendance was down. Perhaps people
were put off by the torrential storm that hit the southern parts of
Victoria on Saturday. There was no rain at Muckleford all weekend, so
the tracks were fast and dry.
The riders who took part were in the
most part delighted with the courses and the terrain. There were
tales of misfortune. Mark Valentine burnt through a tyre on his bike
on the way to the event and had to scratch. The tyre was touching the
exhaust. Ralph Koch smashed a derailleur. Glenn Charlton had two
punctures with the second finishing his day. It was great to see
Andrew and Sarah Campbell, all the way from Queensland, with their
trailer camper van.
Alex Randall won C1 easily, riding the
36km in 104 minutes. Times were very tight among the other finishers
with a spread of just 11 minutes between Carolyn Jackson, 2nd
in 125 minutes, Scott Gavens, Anthony Jones, Steven Law and Ed
Steenbergen.
Peter Cusworth won C2 with BK riders
taking out the first 3 places. Leigh Privett travelled down from
Beechworth to win C3 and Blake Gordon from Ballarat was a clear
winner on C4. Rebecca Shaw collected 12 controls in winning the score
course and Mia Gavens won the course for the littlies. Rob Edmonds – Organiser
Results, Splits and Final Series Standings
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