Wellington MTBO Champs Final Information
Maungakotukutuku, 19/20 June
Course planner Steve Meeres has some things he wants to say but has been out there today
putting out controls. So I'll provide a draft which we can update later. We'll have copies
of this at the event but somehow people don't seem to read things there!
Getting There
Signposted from SH1 at Waterfall Road 2km north of Mackays Crossing between
Paekakarike and Raumati. Note this is a hazardous turnoff and railway crossing,
alternative access from the north is via Valley Rd, Paraparaumu. Its about 5km of
windy road from there.
Times
Saturday checkin 12-1pm, start times self-selected as for local series 12:30 to 2:00pm.
Sunday checkin 9:00 to 9:30am, and everyone will start at 10:00am, finishing 12:00.
Courses
The climbs are slightly higher than the entry form stated so we've made the distances slightly less.
We suspect the times will be a bit above, go on prove us wrong!!! Course 4 (for which we have
no entries yet) will be an individually tailored version of course 3: you can choose less
distance, less climb, or both, so ideal for newcomers.
- Course 1 23km, 760m climb
- Course 2 19.5km, 620m climb
- Course 3 15km, 400m climb
- Course 4 by arrangement.
Starting Procedure
The Saturday courses are entirely premarked on the maps which you will see only 2min before your
start time. (A bit of extra surprise to make that first route choice! If you are new to MTBO
just ask and we'll give you a squizz ahead of time.) On Sunday we'll give you some planning time
prior to the actual start, probably about 10 minutes. Should make the actual start a bit
more of a drama!
Mapping
As a new area we want you to know how we have done the mapping, you shouldn't have to find
out by trial and error!
- The tracks are classified according to the usual scheme, wide/narrow and three
ridabilities. Now for those in-between quad bike tracks, we have used the following
rule of thumb. If there is only one reasonable line a biker can take, it is "narrow".
A "wide" track would give you a choice of lines and allow two bikers to pass.
- As always, the middle ridability covers quite a range of speeds. Remember that the
ridability is about the surface with gravity taken out of the equation, the slope
is shown by the closeness of the contours!
- We've used the lowest ridability for (e.g.)
extensive scouring, lots of slippery roots, and frequent bogs or large deep puddles.
This is fairly general, there could be bits of low-grade tracks that are ridable,
we are showing the average.
- We've used the specific obstacle symbol too, a purple bar across the track.
This could be "up" like a gate or fallen tree. Or it could be "down" like
a washout.
- Because there are a couple of (fairly small) areas where the tracks are quite vague,
we are trying an experiment with off-track riding. The colour WHITE means forest where
you are permitted to ride between tracks. The colour GREEN means forest where you are
NOT permitted to ride off-track (and you wouldn't want to anyway!). YELLOW is used for
open land as usual and you're not allowed off-track there either, except for "allowable
routes" shown with green lines. So the change is just for areas shown as white. It's not
meant to make things harder, just to get over the problem of these vague areas. Elsewhere
we are using tape to clarify what we have mapped as a track, you shouldn't have to guess!
- We've marked a couple of out of bounds areas with purple stripes. One is a fenced-off
quad bike practice area, the other is our carparking area.
Sponsorship
Because of the support of "On Yer Bike" we have a basket of prizes which we'll dispense with
the usual mixture of merit, misfortune and random chance! Thanks On Yer Bike.
Entries, phone calls and rumours about entries are still flying round, so we've
printed a limited number of spare maps. They are A3 but for Saturday you'll be able to fold a good part of it out of the way.
Ckeck out the entry list
here.
See you at the weekend.
Written by Michael
Wood and installed on 17 June 04