Sharpen Your Skills With MTBO
Jon Brooke / 05.04.2004
The Peel Adventure MTBO (mountain bike orienteering) series starts this Friday with the first heat in Grizedale Forest in the Lake District, the day before the JK orienteering festival at Graythwaite Estate a few miles away.MTBO is a great way to sharpen up your navigation skills and improve your bike speed and handling, as each event uses a specially drawn orienteering map showing narrow paths as well as the wider trails you would see on an OS map. Each rider has an individual start time and there are normally around fifteen checkpoints to collect in order (this is a straight race!) on a course that takes about an hour and a half, so the event is pretty hectic and a lot of fun.
The really neat part of these events is that the checkpoints send out a radio signal to a receiver that is attached to your bike, so you only need to ride within a few feet of them to ‘dib’ and don’t have to stop. The electronic bits are supplied by the organiser and all you need to take part is a bike, helmet compass and a mapboard (which you can make from a bit of board and a few cable ties at a pinch).
If you can’t make this Friday’s race (phone Dave Peel on 0114 266 3169 for a late entry) then there are four more races in the series:
Wharnecliffe, Sheffield - 25th April
Sherwood Forest - 8th May
Cannock Chase - 30th May
Mid Wales - 18th August
Full details are on the Peel Land Surveys site here.
Most of the courses at the JK festival of Orienteering are pre-entry only and entries are now closed, however there are a number of easier courses available for entry on the day on Saturday and Sunday. For full details click here.
