Starting early wearing the open women's yellow jersey, New Plymouth's Jacqui Sinclair caused some concern among the planning team when she failed to return on schedule from the second loop. She finally appeared at a run pushing her bike after smashing her derailleur. Her effort kept her 6 minutes ahead of Sue Lyttle from Wairarapa, who holds second place in the series on points. Sinclair completed the 8.5km, 300m course was 67 minutes.
Julian Cox was the first of the top open men to finish, and interest centred on whether he would beat Whitby winner Steve Holden, who had started two minutes later. Two minutes went by with no Holden, and another two minutes saw his lead from the previous event used up. He arrived five minutes after that again to surrender the series lead.
Meanwhile top veteran MTB racer Marco Renalli was charging through the course. In spite of passing up the main road through the picnic area for an uphill forest track of greater distance, and starting eight minutes behind, he all but caught Holden's yellow jersey, taking second place a little over a minute behind Cox. They were the only two under the hour for the 12.5km course, which had 500m of climb. Holden was third. The series so far, to be decided on the best three out of four points scores, has Cox in front but Holden still ahead of Renalli.
Hutt Vally MTB Club's Graeme Silcock asserted his dominance over the veteran men's field on the 8.5km course with a margin of 8 minutes over a bunch fighting for second place. Wellington orienteer Neil Kane, the first rider to choose the purpose-made MTB track up to the tunnel ridge over the Mt Climie road became the runner-up, just ahead of another HVMBC rider Graeme Campbell and Otaki ex-orienteer Brian Stewart, second last time. Silcock's time was a touch under 45 minutes. Series-wise, Silcock is followed by Kane, a smidgin ahead of Stewart.
Blake Sinclair took out the junior men's race on the same course, just failing to beat Mum's time by 25 seconds. And Christine de Roo captured the vet women's title on the 5.5km course. Although it only had three controls, the route choices were just as difficult, and de Roo, who is more at home on the road, chose a long but fast route through Te Marua and Maymorn to good effect.
Planners Brent Hoy and Michael Wood are impressed with the rapid development of standard, with winning times (adjusted for course differences) improving by 10% over Whitby. To some extent this is due to discovery of the the best methods of carrying map and clipcard, but riders are also getting used to making route choice and navigation decisions on the move, avoiding time-wasting pauses at junctions.
This won't be such an issue on the steep St Pats Forest where the next event will be held on 29 July, but it will be extremely important at the Wellington Champs and series final at Waitarere (28 August). The easy terrain there coupled with a maze of tracks will be a real test of ability to keep your riding speed within your mapreading speed.
The full results are on the HVOC Results Page
and also the
MTBO results Page
The next event in the series will be on July 29 at St Pats Forest,
Silverstream. For more details about MTBO
in New Zealand and worldwide, see the
MTBO Website