Good things about today:

• The enjoyable ride on the sprint event (this one just for Masters, the others had a rest day)
• The wonderfully cooling swim in the huge Balaton lake afterwards
• The new bike mechanicals worked perfectly without a hitch
• Murray got a ride in the sprints and had a good time
• The Contour took a great movie of my sprint ride (see below…)
• Carolyn J got a silver medal
• Knee was fine
• Ice cream at the lake

Not so good things about today:

• The oppressive heat continued
• The moment as you watch your split ticket being printed and you see two dashed lines
• The really odd map colouring which the greens looked like yellow, and the near invisible purple control lines
• The realisation I had (yet again )skipped a little 2 control loop without knwoing it at the time (went directly from 5->8 which are very close to each other)
• Dinner at the caf (well it was OK, better than Tuesday’s I thought)

Sorry for the odd placement of these images, but the wordpress blog just appears to have undergone a “media upgrade” and moving images around now seems to be broken.It also randomly ‘forgets’ captions and titles. All very strange !

Peter C finished 37th and Murray 46th in M50. Carolyn C also rode today finishing a credible 13th in W50.

Previous blog here: https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/wmmtbo-middle-middling/

My sprint video (in 2 parts) :

http://youtu.be/V_lyw0Rfi4Y

http://youtu.be/wqoAtv0x4Hg

See if you can spot the ooops after the long downhill in the 2nd video (as well as the obvious mistake skipping 6 & 7 in the first).  Have a look at the map on Route Gadget to follow the control sequence. http://www.mtbo.hu/mtbwoc2012.php/routegadget, or if not there yet, here is a photo I took of my map:

Cheers,

Bruce

If anyone bothered to watch my ‘live feed data’ today (in the middle of the night in Aus), you have noticed a sudden drop in my speed at around control 7. There’s a very good reason for this, and it basically revolves around the fact that once your rear derailler has broken off, it isn’t possible to pedal anymore. Well at least I was able to ride down hills and walk otherwise, at least untill I then got a puncture.  There has to be something very special about managing to get a puncture once you are walking your bike 🙂

Pure bloody mindedness, and the fact it wasn’t a huge detour, made me decide to finish the course walking. Quite amazingly, I wasn’t last, even amongst those who didn’t miss-punch. I felt I was going pretty well up till things broke, possibly mid 20’s sort of placing, but that’s just a guess.

The team blog will appear at http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.hu

Peter C came 23rd in the tough M50 category, but we just went to watch Carolyn J get her gold for W50. Also well done to Chris F, 5th in Juniors, and that means he also got to stand on the podium. Please Slovakia don’t keep doing well, your national anthem is toooo long !

M40 1st, 2nd & 3rd all Czech Republic !

Update: My bike is all fixed up again by the local bike shop, ready for the Masters sprint event tomorrow morning.

Went into the nearby ‘old town’ for Pizza, wine and ice cream cone afters. Delicious, and have to say a lot better than the organised meals at the uni caf.

Cheers, Bruce

Earlier blog: https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/wmmtbo-veszprem-arrival/

OK, so lets stare at the elephant in the room right off !  Yep, this bit of the blog has nothing to do with ARDF. …

It will though, eventually, as this time I’m taking part in the World Masters mountain bike orienteering in Hungary, on-the-way to Serbia. Other things also make it a little more relevant, such as the help I’ve received from our good Hungarian friend, Gyrui.

So yes, I have arrived in Veszprem.

It’s hot.

Did I say it’s hot ?  Well coming straight from the Auzzie snowfields to here is a bit of a shock, with temperatures in the high 30’s.  Gyuri likens it to Death Valley. It’s been that way since I got to Vienna yesterday. The 2-part train journey from there was actually quite pleasant. The last part as you approach Veszprem from Gyor was spectacular, with pitch dark tunnels through mountains (the old MAV diesel train didn’t appear to have operational lighting) shooting you out onto high bridges over gorges.

Murry picked me up at the train station (we are sharing a hire car), then left me to it as he wanted to see his son, Karl, finish in the Juniors sprint race (he did well, actually). I assembled my bike in the University accommodation we’re sharing (luckily on the less sunny side of the building, and only on the 1st floor,so cooler). The odometer sender mount was the only casualty of the air transport (or perhaps even the Bruce transport), but I’ve managed to rig up something with cable ties that appears to work fine.

Murray returned a bit later to give Carolyn J and myself a lift to our model event, held on the sprint map the Open (World MTBO) and juniors (JWMTBO) rode on earlier today. Murray has also scored a free bike for himself to loan from one of the organisers (!), so we could all go for a ride.

A cloud came over just as we started, so the heat wasn’t too oppressive, and I quite enjoyed the ride. The sprint event was effectively a foot-O event on bikes, as there is no requirement to stick to the tracks here, and in fact many of the sprint controls weren’t even placed on a track !  The other bit of good news is that it seems I am able to ride, after a bit of a snowboarding accident last week. Detaching the left hand foot from the pedal isn’t easy though, so I’ll have to avoid falling on that side !

Opening ceremony…what can I say ?  I escaped before the traditional dancers got going as the masters aren’t required there.

There is a blog for the offcial team here: http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.hu

Tomorrow is the first real event for Masters;  Middle Distance champs. I’m taking lots of water 🙂

Cheers, Bruce

This blog covers he last 3 days – for the much diminished group remaining.

Thursday was a low key event on Harding’s Paddock (which was in fact mostly bush) a little south of Ipswich. The map is in the gallery below. A tricky course that lulled you into a false sense of security. A few of us had trouble even on control 1. The other trick was finding the way through the deep green Lantana around the creek. I ended used the dry sandy blue creeks themselves because I couldn’t find the secret path shown to the far west that was harder to find than it looks ! Ewen had a really good event, coming close to my time despite a lower speed. Sausages & drinks after were part of the deal. Still quite warm.

Apparently there is a group of retirees who run events every Thursday for themselves, and others such as Uni students & proffessors also occasionally make an appearance. Rod of this group gave Suzanne and myself a lift to Brisbane when Ewen went back to Stanthorpe to rescue Henk (who is feeling better by the way).

Suzanne & I clambered around Mt Coutha on Friday after being dropped off at the top cafe by Ian, my brother on his way into work. Birthday dinner in Toowong joined by Henk & Ewen.

Today the sprint events were a lot of fun. They were the tricky navigational universitycampus types that really keep you thinking hard the whole way. Apologies in advance for the dodgy map quality in my photos. For a start they were fairly hard to read anyway, but the morning event at the Kelvin Grove QUT campus on Pretex was a lot better than the afternoon, very dark printing, map on plastic bagged paper UQ St Lucia campus.

In the morning we competed in our normal age groups, and I managed a 4th, almost a 3rd place, but for a 30 sec error I made punching a later control 11 on my way to 9 (I have a bit of an unfortunate  habit of this). Suzanne had a good run against a very competitive field who would probably do very well against the Elites. A hard, but very brief tropical rain shower doused her just after she started. Ewen had a ‘mp’ which he was a bit bamboozeld by, till he got the map and realised he’d just missed 8 altogether.

In the afternoon we all did a Sunley. Doing a Sunley entails entering Elites in a sprint, even though hopelessly outclassed, just to get a decent run. However, we also took the precaution of entering in disguise. Suzanne (Ingrid, lisped with an outrageous scandanavian accent) had flowing golden locks, Ewen made a pretty below par attempt at Elvis impersonation, and my super-sized afro bore an unintentional but convincing resemblance to a certain Elite called David Sheppard. The other thing you should also note when doing a Sunley is whether the 2 sprints on the 1 day are actually part of the same event (ooops), so they ended up putting us at the end of the chasing starts, after all the morning mp Elites. We also had a very minature Warren Key in Elites (Warren had mp’d in the morning so gave Ashton a go in the afternoon instead; and lil-Warren beat me, as it turns out).

I actually made a pretty good bash at this event, and had I not been tricked by a ‘switch’ control to go direct 7 -> 8/12 -> 13 (the map was very dark and 8/12 -> were in a direct line so an understandable mistake in retrospect, that others also made on my 1b varient), I wouldn’t actually have been last. Oh well, missing out 9,10,11,12 loop is a definite mp. Lil Warren (Ashton) did M21E in 32 minutes, and he is only 10 or something ! Ingrid had the same ‘switch’ control, but was more cautious and finished the W21E sprint properly, complete with the aforementioned much admired golden plaits swinging about. Elvis took his 50 minutes cautiously, but also left the building with an M21E under his ample belt.

Henk was picked up by his sister, and we now have a hire car, picked up with some jiggery pokery at midday today. At least it means we can get to the last event tomorrow. Why they didn’t have the Brisbane sprints on Sunday I have no idea !?

Here’s an edited video of Day 1 Sledge mass start. Unfortunately still quite jerky (David Stratten would be unimpressed), but the raw footage is far worse!). http://youtu.be/dR1_elwgwuA

Rest day yesterday, and most of us needed it after the 4 days of rock & seeds.

Yesterday, many went to visit the Girraween National park a few km south of Stanthorpe, followed by a relaxed lunch at the Stage Coach Cafe, then a quick Winery visit to Symphony Hill. We’d tried the earlier nights winnings and decided not to visit Summit wines, but Robert Channon winery might also be worth a visit, which we did after the event today.

Some pictures of the National Park are in the gallery.

Take a peek at the Cascades map from this morning. Wow, what an inticate masterpiece ! There were mixed O results today, ranging from “I’ll never go here again”, to “that was really quite fun”. My own experience was more in the latter category. There weren’t any age groups today; people had just entered whatever course length and navigational difficulty they thought they would like to do. Like street-O. I’ve had a belief for quite a while that Vic State Series events should all be like this. You compete against people of all ages, but similar abilitites. It avoids small age groupings with only a handful (or just one !) person.

Most courses featured one or two long hard legs in them (see map below), which tripped up some, but everyone finished their course, despite some being of the epic variety. There was lots of grey that was mapped so well it was a bit like street orieteering in Kensington, till you had to cross the shrubbery barriers !  The white was fairly thick in places, but not as seedy as other days, so it was great to not have to spend the hours de-seeding various bits of clothing today.

Given the high class of those finishing above me in Red 3, such as Nick Dent, and many notable names below me, such as Isabelle Wymer (2nd over Easter 3 days), the ever average Russell Blatchford, Easter Day 2 course setter David Firman, and John Scown (who caught me on the 1st control), I was quite happy with my 4th place. Suzanne did well on her super long 4th leg in Red 5, but was too tired to navigate properly for the next few controls. Still, she still beat John Sheahan who started well but had some grief on the long leg. Mark Besley had the same long leg as Suzanne, but did a commendable multi-faceted noodle on arrival near the control circle. Very picturesque !

The afternoon in the sun, a bit cooler today, was spent at a winery, a cheese factory and a berry farm place called the The Bramble Patch (yummy raspberry and boisenberry ice cream mixed on the spot).

Most of us leave Stanthorpe tomorrow and head north to near Ipswich. Mark heads home towards Melbourne carting the very valuable grape based cargo.

Last day of Easter 3 Days, the final day of reckoning of the cummulative event.

At least we weren’t to be blessed with Lantana-land today, but instead much more prickly and persistant grass seeds Probably a bit hillier than Day 1, with lots of rocky outcrops. It was located north of Stanthorpe, but not as far as the Warwick event yesterday. Again the weather was hot, high 20’s, as it has been for all of Easter so far.

So what happened of note today ?

W45AS: Phillippa Collins made up her 13s behind, and a bit more, and ended up leading her field by about 30s overall for the 3 days. Anne Robinson also had a good day to end up mid field 9th overall. Suzanne O’Callaghan continued her consistant and reliable navigation, especially today, to end up 5th overall.

M16: Remarkably, after his 30 minute epic control yesterday, Nick Collins had a near perfect run today to regain 2nd place overall. Peter Collins was also happy with his run and ended up mid-field. The Collins will probably be reading this blog as they trek home tomorrow to Parkes then Melbourne, and will no doubt leave a comment.

Sledge: I had a pretty average day. After a good start with safe navigation, I ended up catching a number of other Sledgers. This is generally not a good thing because they aren’t always accurate ! I was sure they were heading the wrong way up a spur to #5, but I also wasn’t sufficiently confident to stay my own coures in the very vague rocks, so half-way in between wasn’t much use 🙂 Another mistaken trak on the way to #9 also lost me a few more minutes. Even didn’t come near on the finish split, despite really trying hard on the downhill chute: 27s > 22s winner. Ended up 8th overall, which was exactly middleof the Sledge field. The Perfect Sledger ?

The Sledge presentations were the most amusing, with much celebratory bubbly drink spurted over the various division winners for today. See map below. Who is going to coordinate Sledge within BG at Easter 2013 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac-IylCy3PI&feature=youtu.be

M45AS: Mark Besley considered the 1st control so hard that if the rest of the course was liike that he’d be out there for 3 hour. Couple of nav errors but he finished the course in about half  his predicted time. Unfortuanely for Stephen Collins, he did take just under 3 hours on a challenging adventure.

W Open B: Tina Smith took out this division. Now she can have her knee operation (but after the Aust. Rogaine champs !).

Wymer Family: Every member won a place in their division!  See photos.

W70A:  Helen Alexander finally coming good with a much more pleasing 3rd place today, but unfortunately not good enough to help much for her overall result.

A pretty well organised and challenging carnival from the Queensland clubs.

Tim leaves us today, and the Collins head off tomorrow in their brand new Skoda. For the rest, we have some more adventures to come. The mysteriously named “Cascades”….

PS: Leave a comment if you have enjoyed reading these blogs.

Previous Days:

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-prologue/

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-day-1/

https://ardf.org.au/WordPress/2012/easter-3-days-day-2/

All trekked north past Warwick for today’s event. The rocks were ditched, but replaced by the even less pleasant Lantana (and other weeds). Even prickly pears made an appearance.

At first it all seemed much easier than yesterdy, and most of the earlier legs were faster running. Perhaps those oreinteers we’d seen returning from early runs covered in sticky seeds has just all taken really poor route choices ? This was all to lull us into  false sense of security as the  lack of easier discerned features and the weed took their toll.

Nick Collins was going great guns till his control 4, which turned into a 30 minute nightmare excursion into Lantana-land. David Knight took a different route chice to that same control, and was deeply scared he would lose contact with the map. Luckily the D.Knight magic compass came to the rescue and he went over the spur was praying would be there, along a subtle border between nearly inpenetrable and completely inpenetrable Lantana to nail the control. Peter Collins fared better than both Nick and Dad, and managed to soundly beat them both with a good overall result. Incidentally, this same zone was the downfall of Warren Key, who, hard to believe, actually admits being “completely lost; no idea where I was”. Perhaps Rowdy Flat has to demoted the second most technically challenging map in Australia ?

Helen Alexander fared better than yesterday, but still lags the ultra competitive W70 field. Phillippa Collins also fared very well today, pushing up to be only 13s from the leader. I, on the other hand, plummetted from 3rd to 7th in Sledge, after 2 consecutive poor legs wandering around subtle parallel features wasting many minutes. Ewen Templeton mucked up his usual 1 control on his course, so remains happy with his event.

The Elites were all coming in very late, having experienced a gruelling Lantana laden epic.

There was no Sledge presentation today; perhaps the organisers were just worn out after the extra heat and tiredness of the returning Elites. I know the fastest finish split was 16s, way below my 24s (my excuse is someone got in the way!).

Tomorrow is back in the Stanthorpe area, after the O dinner tonight.