The first round of the national Mountain Bike Orienteering league will be held on the Sunday 27th February, with screaming round the emptiness which is MOD Stafford on a weekend. This huge ex-RAF logistics base is now home to Signals and Logistics Army Regiments and consists of literally hundreds of buildings, tracks and paths. The organisers, Walton Chasers, have had to move the event to here from their home around Cannock Chase due to permissions issues.
The event will consist of a 20-30 minute prologue and then a seeded final, with groups of 3 riders racing head to head on a 40-60 minute cloverleaf course. Riders will be finding checkpoints using the specially drawn 1:6500 scale map under planes and even inside empty hangers.
Live results from checkpoints throughout the race should keep the atmosphere buzzing as riders wait their turn to start the final.
The new format is hoped to finally bury the dated image of beards and bulldog clips and bring younger riders to this fast and furious sport which internationally is so different to the style of events the UK is used to.
Mark Stodgell from the club said “I think it could be one of the most exciting events to hit the UK MTBO scene so far”
For more details see the Walton Chasers website at www.walton-chasers.co.uk or for more general info on MTBO see www.bmbo.org.uk.
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So this is what Scruff has been in training for!
Wow, this looks great, I’m going to give it a go.
If you’re going to put MTBO events on in the MTQ area, could you try to avoid a clash of dates please.
I’ll be at the MTQ trailquest at Chilton, Oxfordshire on that date, otherwise I would have entered.
Maybe next time.
Apologies for the clash, Its been in the BMBO calendar for ages but because of permissions woes and this late move to the MOD site we have only been able push the advertising in the last few weeks.
I don’t normally look at the BMBO event list because everything seems to be too far away for me, I’m in Worcestershire.
If there’s a chance of more events in the Midlands though, I’ll start checking and maybe see you at one of them.
I’m getting excited…..!