I am looking at starting mountain biking orienteering and was wondering if any1 here does this sport? And also, what do you use to hold your map?

Home made board?
Pocket?
Professional board?

And finally, what advice can you give me on this topic?

they are great fun, but i've not done one for a few years. Am going to change that with the dark and white winter series…

anyway, I've just done it in the past with a piece of corrugated cardboard with holes put in with the aid of the end of a pair of scissors and attached to the bars with zip ties 🙂

you want it in front of you – to be checking and forward planning as you ride, and a pocket is just frustrating to keep dipping in to.

My trailquesting map board.

A plastic chopping board held on with cable ties.

Used the a maptrap when i used to do them. Very good as you can easily wip the map out if you need to.

http://www.ukbikestore.co.uk/product/98/map_trap/polaris-map-trap.html

Plastic chopping board with cable ties and bulldog clips for me too.

A compass is also useful, I use this which clips to a camelbak chest strap for ease of use.

Get used to reading the contours and working out how to join up the maximum number of checkpoints whilst minimizing distance, elevation gain and terrain difficulty. There's a lot of time to be saved with a well-planned route. Gorrick's website has a sample map on it somewhere for you to practice, have a look around in the Trailtrax section. I'd post a link, but I don't seem to be able to access it at the moment.

Above all, remember to have fun – MTBO is a great and sometimes frantic way to pass several hours without really noticing 🙂

A bit of a guide I wrote on my training log. Scroll down for the relevant bit.

http://www.veganfitness.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9189&start=615

Cheers Graham, that's a good tip:

OS 1:50 000 map. Each square is 1km across. The mental arithmetic I mentioned is little more than knowing that at 15km/h it takes me 4 minutes to cross one square, at 20km/h it take 3 minutes. All I do is count the squares, look at the time remaining and estimate the speed I can average.

There's always more to learn!

Homemade board from plasticard, and put the map in a clear folder, even permenant pen can get rained off.

I find flat bars with bar ends give a better usable cockpit when using a mapboard, and more hand positions for the grind on a 5 hour TQ.

Marry and pair up with someone faster than you 🙂 not getting a grilling all the way home is a great incentive to stay fit!

I splashed out on a Miry map board and have never looked back. It was not cheap (£30 ish) but it raises the map up from the bars and being able to rotate the map to the direction of travel is something I would never give up now I have got used to it.

Having a rough idea of your average MTB speed is useful. e.g. if you average 12kph when out riding and you are doing a 3 hour event then you can plan a route in the region of 36km. Try to make sure that your route allows for some short cuts to get you back quickly if time is running short.

Try to keep stops to a minimum. Each one eats up a tiny amount of your time and might cost one one last checkpoint.

Have fun.

There is generally loads of good chat afterwards and it is worth hanging around to talk to other competitors about their routes etc as you can learn a lot from them.

offthebrakes – Member
Plastic chopping board with cable ties and bulldog clips for me too.
A compass is also useful, I use this which clips to a camelbak chest strap for ease of use.
Get used to reading the contours and working out how to join up the maximum number of checkpoints whilst minimizing distance, elevation gain and terrain difficulty. There's a lot of time to be saved with a well-planned route. Gorrick's website has a sample map on it somewhere for you to practice, have a look around in the Trailtrax section. I'd post a link, but I don't seem to be able to access it at the moment.
Above all, remember to have fun – MTBO is a great and sometimes frantic way to pass several hours without really noticing

^ thanks, I'm a keen foot o'er and so navigation is (touchwood) not a problem o.0

So sounds like cable tie an old chopping board to bars for the cheap?

Wonder if pipe clips would do a better job than zip ties what with them being able to snap off the board in the (hopefully) rare event of a short, unplanned trip off the bike to the rather unforgiving floor?

I tend to only use 2 zip ties to mount the chopping board, so there's plenty of room for it to rotate during those unexpected dismounts!

Beware though, even if you're used to doing foot navigation, MTBO is still a bit of a different challenge. My other half was once a youth champion orienteer, but the first time she did solo MTBO she found it quite confusing. She was used to a much larger scale map than 1:50000, and was also used to taking bearings and being able to go pretty much anywhere on the map (whereas in MTBO you mainly have to stick to RoWs and roads).

Anyway, good luck, you'll soon get the hang of it, and half the fun is chatting to others afterwards and comparing notes to see what you could have done better!