Auckland's Rob Garden (who is actually a M55) has won the M40 class at the Australian MTBO Champs, held in Queensland on Wednesday. His winning margin was 12 minutes.
The top kiwi woman was Garden's partner Marquita Gelderman in 6th place. Other New Zealanders riding in a middle-distance (non-championship) event and the long championship were Dianne Michels and Christina Renhart in open women, Joe Sherrif in M50 and Jo Wilson who was second in a small W40 class. In fact the women did very well in the middle-distance, placing 3rd (Michels), 5th (Gelderman) and 7th (Renhart).
The womens championship courses were quite long, with a lot of climb coming towards the end, and conditions were very hot and dry. Champion Emily Viner took just under 2 hrs for the 33km. The mens course which was about right in length was won by 2 minutes by Adrian Jackson, regular winner Alex Randall having to play second fiddle for a change.
The pine-and-eucalypt forest contained a lot of rock, and instructions allowed the flat bare sections of rock to be ridden over. The tracks had sandy sections, and rocky bits where erosion had occurred. But the mapping was good, with large granite boulders mapped where they were close to the track. Four speed values for tracks were used (solid and three dash lengths) and this is not what will be used at the World Champs. While additional speed information is valuable, the other point of view is that you can't distinguish the different dashes on the move.