I spent today doing a trailquest event around Ludlow (UK). Its MTB orienteering where each electronic control point you ‘beep’ with an electronic tag earns x amount of points. You choose your own route from the map that is given with all the points marked. Today’s event was part of a national series. I only found out about it a couple of days ago, but thought it would be good to go along. The ‘buzz’ from doing the redbull earlier his year had started to fade a little, so I decided to go out and try a different event. I was a little put off when I saw the map (after I’d paid my entry fee!) as at first estimate it would take over 60 miles to go around all the electronic control points, and it was only a 5 hour event. Luckily a portion of the overall course was designated as the ‘2 1/2 hour event for softies’, where the points were quite dense.
I started out along a road, partly as a warm up, and partly to get out to the far end of the area and work my way back through the forest. It’s quite a hilly area (there are some national series downhill courses within these woods) so the going soon got tough to say the least. Although I know the area quite well, I spent around a third of the time on trails I’ve not ridden before. I think the local knowledge was a big advantage, as it made route planning much easier. Overall I covered just over 23 miles of road / forest road / singletrack in 4hrs 40. Not being used to riding against the clock I couldn’t really gauge how much time to allow to get back to the start, and being late costs lots of points. As it turned out I could have used the spare 20 mins to pick up one of the two control points I missed out on my way back. The last hour was starting to become a pain management exercise, as I’m not used to riding for so long, so perhaps It was better I didn’t go any further.
It was a very well organised event, with a burger / baked spud van waiting at the finish line, with a free meal included in the £16 entry fee.
From the provisional results that were posted before I left i was 7th from last in a field of around 20 in the mens 17 - 39 category, which, as the only unicyclist there, I’m well pleased with.
The series is organised by the Trail Cyclists Association:
There’s a calendar of the upcoming events, I’ll definitely be doing more of them.
Tomorrow I am mostly going to ache…