The first two events (21 Feb and 20 Mar) will be in Riverhead Forest, which offers great mountain-biking in the summer months when the Woodhill sand is very dry. In the winter the tables are turned, Riverhead gets sticky and Woodhill firms up; the third event on 30 May, and swapping from Saturday to Sunday, will be in Woodhill. This last event follows a one-hour score event on foot; sometimes described as a mini-rogaine, or runny-trailquest.
The events will use the Sport-Ident system of electronic clipping, and this enables all times between controls to be recorded. With route choice being an important aspect of MTB-orienteering, knowing just how long you took from A to B, and your rivals, is fascinating. The times are usually loaded onto club websites, some of which can even display the data graphically and show who was in the lead until that fatal mistake, who were the steady performers, and who was erratically brilliant!
The practical equipment consists of a box which sits on the control, with a hole into which you put your e-card. The box beeps and a light flashes to confirm that the box has written its ID and the time onto your e-card. At the end, you put your e-card into a similar box which reads the data onto the organiser's computer. Within seconds you get a printout of your times, and more importantly confirmation that you visited all the controls and in the correct order!
E-cards are quite small. Runny-orienteers wear them on a finger, in big-time MTBO they have to be attached to the bike with an extending cord device which many office users have for their security cards. In the NW series it is likely that you can carry them as you wish, remembering the rule that the bike must go to every control. E-cards cost about $50, and will be available for hire for $3 per day. In widespread use in Europe and Australia, its only a matter of time before they are commonplace in New Zealand.
Check out further details of the NW MTBO Series, email Christina Renhart, or Phone Rob Garden on 09 420 2849.