Man Beats Machine

A rogainer on foot has equalled the best score by a mountainbike orienteer on a score event near Upper Hutt. And with the rogaine being over half in darkness, and the top MTBO score being posted unofficially by the mapmaker, the prize has to be given to the rogainer!

Mind you, the bikers had to contend with snow on part of the course. And the top open men were absent from the MTBO event, the last of the Wellington series held in July. So maybe there is scope for a return match! Anyway, here are the details...

The MTBO course at Tunnel Gully had a top score of 540. Michael Wood turned in a score of 330 in the 2-hour time period. (Steve Meeres scored the top official result with 310.) Last night Orienteering Hutt Valley ran a rogaine (long-distance score event usually for teams) using leftover maps, but with a few extra controls added. Bill Edwards (who represented Ireland at the World Orienteering Championships) scored 520 out of 640 in the 2hr40 time period allowed.

Taking away the extra controls added for the rogaine gives Bill an equivalent score of 440. Multiplying by three-quarters to reduce to a 2-hour basis gives 330, exactly the same as Wood's score on the bike! And with the second half in darkness, and with Edwards fighting a bug that left him feeling ill afterwards and unable to eat!

This is not the first time that maps have been shared between MTBO and small rogaines; St Pats Forest also near Upper Hutt, the Western Hills of Lower Hutt, and the Makara Peak MTB Park have all been used at different times for both MTBO and for after-work rogaines. Although rogainers don't use the track ridability information and are allowed to go off-track, in Wellington's steep and jungly hinterland it's no advantage to do so anyway. We look forward to the next man/machine contest!

MTBO results and Rogaine results.

This page was written by Michael Wood and installed on 17 Oct 03.