Hutt Valley OC MTBO enthusiasts Brent Hoy and Michael Wood have roughed out a MTBO event programme for 2001. This follows their very successful 2000 season of four events, which saw about 80 riders take part and 20 cross Cook Strait to take part in the National Champs at Hanmer.
The "season" is timed to start on Sat 24 March with a navigation training day. They envisage a couple of hours putting across some basic skills and practising them on a miniature area such as a "track" network marked out on a beach. This will get the ideas across without wearing riders out, so they can then put the ideas into practice on a "proper" course. Waitarere is the venue they have in mind.
Brent and Michael have another 4-event series in mind, on 28 April, 26 May, 30 June and 28 July, with a separate Wellington Champs on 25 August. They hope that other Wellington-area clubs will undertake to put on some of these events, since participants this year came from Wairarapa, Kapiti and Manawatu areas as well as Wellington and the Hutt Valley. The four areas used this year are all capable of setting different courses on, plus the boys are looking at Makara Peak, Belmont Regional Park and Te Kopahou Reserve.
All this will lead up to a presumed National Championship on 29-30 September. Logically it would be in the North Island next year, but so far no-one has applied to run it. Any club interested should talk to the NZOF Fixtures Officer ASAP. This is Bruce McLeod who is also on the federation's MTBO Committee.
This page was written by Michael Wood on 4 Dec 00.
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