Forget navigating my way round a Czech forest, the hardest
part of the World Mountain Bike Orienteering Champs (WMTBOC) is going to be
condensing nearly two weeks of awesomeness into a blog that people might
actually read to the end. There’s too
much to tell!
You can read the story of how my MuleBar Girl –Sigma Sport team
mate Adel and I got involved here
but in summary we had just over two months to go from complete beginners at
MTBO to competing on a world stage and orienteering is not easy! I’ll lay off sharing all the times that
I got lost, missed the junction, rode off the map, cycled into trees, glared at the map willing it to make some
kind of sense or cycled up and down the same path convinced where I wanted to
be was about to miraculously materialise when it was actually about 2km away.
Perhaps what I also hadn’t bargained for was exactly how much
amazing fun WMTBOC would be.
The first four days were spent on a lake in Straz Pod Ralkem at a training camp, a chance to get used to the map style and terrain before the big races. There was a lot of sand, a lot of geeking over maps and a lot of much needed practice time.
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| Not a bad place to spend a few days |
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| Men's training camp relay map - did this backwards to get even more training in |
Amazingly I actually felt like I’d got a bit better at MTBO
than at our previous race in Pilzen in July. I’d finished bang last in the middle distance
event after spending most of my time riding up and down the same path trying to
make it look like the place I wanted to be on my map. Things felt like they were coming together a
little, I could plan routes ahead, not have to stop at every control to
remind myself where I was and confidently pick the right roads at the junctions. I was feeling the flow!
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| I think you'll find it's this way |
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| Gorgeous forests - If only the real racing had been this flat |
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| Find stairs will ride down them |
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| Looking Pro |
There was also plenty of time to do a little swimming in the lake, go wakeboarding with our neighbours Team USA and mess about on the bikes (oops sorry, I meant go training).
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| Quick pose at the model event |
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| Don't fall up the steps! |
...followed by the WMTBOC opening ceremony where I got to carry the Union Jack...
...and then the rain started to fall…
So event one, the middle distance, was going to be a soggy
one. No matter, I like racing in the rain, it just meant I had to wipe the mud
off the mapboard every five seconds.
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| Always try to look like you know what you're doing |
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| I'm sure it's around here somewhere |
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| When in doubt wear every item in your wardrobe |
Still, I caught up with myself just fine and was thrilled to
finish in 47th place, well above what my beginner status should have
allowed. Plus we got to celebrate Emily’s
bronze medal and Ed’s 6th place in the junior men.
Post-race clothing choice was a little lacking though, the long
range forecast had been 35°C
and nothing really resembling warm or waterproof clothing had made it into my
suitcase.
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| Follow the pink lines |
Next up was the sprint distance. Contrary to what it sounds like the sprint is
about going slower as the controls come up in quick succession in a smaller
area. The map scale is bigger too so
every cm on the map was just 75m on the ground.
Fairly early on I found myself on the floor, typically on a
bit of path I shouldn’t even have been riding on as I overshot the junction I
needed. That kind of put my head out of
action for a few minutes, a disaster in orienteering when you need your head
more than screwed on the whole time so the sprint was not really my race. Still, I loved it all the same and learnt
loads to take on for the next event (most importantly - stay on two wheels).
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| Disembodied bowling head - thanks Abra for the pic! |
And what do a load of mountain bikers do on a rest day? Go and find some singletrack of course. More fun times with new friends, lunch by the lake and
another swim.
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| Not proficient enough to get a photo on the actual singletrack |
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| Happy Days! |
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| Long map - All sense of flow completely out the window! |
Then onto Friday’s long course. I would call it hilly but that’s an
understatement, around 3000ft of climbing welcomed us for the final individual
event of the championships, but the climbing didn’t worry me, it was the downhill.
Having only started riding a MTB in April
this was the hardest terrain I’d ridden on and it would be a test of my skills
for sure.
All went well to control one. Control two was all the way over the other
side of an A3 map. It looked like a long
way away!
And it was for me, finally after 45 minutes I punched the second
control, at least 20 minutes longer than it should have taken. I think I panicked at all the navigating I’d
have to do between the two points and my brain shut down, I couldn’t even keep
basic directions in my head. I began to
wonder if I was ever going to get out of the forest alive!
Despite the rather shaky start I managed to pull things back together
and did some pretty reasonable riding the rest of the time. Even though my humungous error did it’s best
to give me a slow time I wasn’t last. Reflecting on the event afterwards, the
long distance had given me a lot of new challenges to contend with which I hadn’t met
before. It wasn't too surprising I'd lost the sense of flow I'd felt at the training camp. I had to read contours and make
route choices based on the terrain as well as execute the routes on the downhills
while cycling way outside my comfort zone/half terrified I was about to fly off and on the uphills while I was red lining with effort. At least while getting lost I had ridden most
of the paths on the map, handy when the following day’s relay was in the same
forest.
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| Long course sprint for the finish - every second counts when you make a 45 minute mistake! |
So the relay, the reason Adel and I were at the World
Championships, so we could form a GB relay team with current European Champion
and World Cup winner Emily Benham. No
pressure there then.
Adel was off first in the le mans mass start. The relay courses are gaffled. Every rider’s map is different but will follow a similar path with some common controls and some controls in similar places. Sounds confusing but essentially means following other teams is pointless.
It was a nervous wait for Adel to come back in ready for my leg but I had another good start, I knew I just had to ride steady and punch all
the controls so that Emily could pick off the competition in leg three.
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| Cool, Calm, Collected |
Unfortunately, Adel and I left Emily with rather a lot of
work to do. After coming through the
spectator control I lost myself on the map a little (I blame all those nice
people cheering putting me off) and it took me probably twice as long to locate
the last few controls than it should have.
I climbed at least two unnecessary hills on my hunt to find control 12.
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| At the spectator control |
Luckily for us Emily kicks ass at MTBO and raised our team game
far more than we’d managed to. Despite a
nasty crash in the sprint distance event Emily brought us home in 11th
place, ahead of Team USA with whom we’d built up a nice bit of friendly rivalry.
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| Dream Team |
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| Many men in hotpants! |
And no world championships would be complete without a
pretty decent last night party. WMTBOC was
no exception. A fancy dress banquet with
free alcohol; what could possibly go wrong…?
I think I have a lot of unfinished business with MTBO, I’m
determined to crack the sport and cannot wait until next year. I learnt a lot, raced hard, made new friends
and did not stop smiling the entire time.
We were also given such a warm, enthusiastic welcome into the
MTBO community. If I can do one thing in
thanks it would be to get some more people involved in the sport back home.
Huge thanks go to Emily for getting us there in the first
place and being so supportive even with her own races and injured limbs to
worry about, her Dad and brother, Nigel and Jack, for all their help in the UK,
Keith for being such a great team official/post-race counsellor/giver of words
of wisdom/knight in shining armour, Han Jørgen for his support and pre-race pep
talks, Adel, Ed & Bjørnar for their Team GB/Norway comradery and everyone else I met out
there for their new friendships. Thanks
also as always to Nick Metcalfe from New Malden Chiropractic Clinic for fixing my
back as I know without him there’s no way I’d still be cycling let alone
representing GB in the world championships.
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| Team GB! |
See you in Portugal for WMTBOC 2016!
(PS- I’m super impressed if you read this far down!)
