I’m in the strange position of having a user name that refers to a club that no longer exists.
Midland Trailquests is no more.
In it’s place are two new clubs, both part of the national club British Mountain Bike Orienteering. http://www.bmbo.org.uk/

Sion set up Black Mountains MBO as part of his Black Mountains Guiding last year and has put on several events already.
The first event of 2014 is this coming Sunday, based at Pandy, near Abergavenny.
I’m putting on an event on Clee Hill in August as part of the Black Mountains Series.

Midlands MBO is a group of former MTQ members with a series of events starting in Cannock on 6th April.

Full list of BMBO events here. http://www.bmbo.org.uk/calendar/

Wish I could get to some of these, unfortunately a bit too far away from me (I’m in north-east Hampshire) as I don’t have a car and planning things around early morning Sunday train services is futile.

Would love to do the Black Mountains stuff in particular!

Ah – I was aware of the existence of Midlands MBO, but assumed it was totally independent of MTQ (given there was a schism between that and BMBO). Good if they’ve made up – should be good for the progress of the sport round here.

Horribly unfit at the moment, but could be tempted by the Abergavenny event given I’m never going to be that bad at TQ even when unfit, thanks for the heads up.

We’re thinking of entering the Black Mountains event tomorrow, not really to compete, but for some map reading practice running up to a MBL assessment in May.

Is this sort of event going to help, never done any orienteering before (but enjoy riding in the Black Mountains generally).

Is MTBO still popular? Last I looked at the website, it looked a bit disorganised, but maybe I’m being a bit too critical. I’m hoping to get back onto it after a long absence. I used to really enjoy it.

Did wonder what had happened to the trailquest site 🙁 … did a few last year ( or the year before ?) and really enjoyed them .. may get to some this year 🙂

Offthebrakes, are you near Gorrick ? They do similar events.

Aracer, I don’t think those who originally split away from BMBO to form MTQ have anything to do with the club now. Being part of the national club now, with one membership and one event list has got to be better for everyone.

agentdagnamit, it’s more about route planning than map reading, but yes, you’ve got know where you are on the map and where you want to be before you can plan your route. 😉

Thecaptain, disorganised in what way ? There’s an event list with on line entry, membership information, results, beginner’s guide and all the other stuff you’d expect from any sports club.

Good price at £12 for the Cannock event. Is it a race or just a bimble to find the markers?

@offthebrakes: as @MTQ says, Gorrick organise the TrailTrax series of Mtb orienteering events in the Surrey/hants area. First event of the season is on Sunday 6th April. Great fun, even if you ride solo. I’ll be riding my orange cotic soul if you want to say hi.

Nigel

Whilst I agree that some areas of the BMBO website are slightly less than intuitive, please bear in mind that BMBO is entirely organised by volunteers, therefore we don’t have the funding or resources that the likes of British Cycling may have. If you feel you have something to offer BMBO in ways of expertise as regards organising the website in your spare time please drop me a line at be n j a m i n . m a r t i n 1 @ t i s c a l i . c o . u k and I’ll see what we can come up with our current volunteer admin.

BMBO events are currently doing very well at the moment with entries up around 25% and an increase in members of about 2000 in the last year. It’s obviously an excellent way to keep fit as well as explore some new areas or even areas that you thought you knew!

This years event calendar is pretty full which is great, the Winter series from Dark and White generally see about 200 riders and during the summer the NYMBO events see 120+ that’s not including other events such as the Polaris and the shorter MTBO events.

As regards bimble or race you can do it as slow or as quick as you like. It gets pretty competitive at the top end and it’s not all about the speed, route choice and experience are critical.

For organisers of MBO Scores or MTBO’s or indeed BMBO members there are a host of benefits such as discounts at Cotswolds Outdoors, Buff, High 5, Purple Harry Bike Care Products and Zyro.

The cost to enter an event is negligible in comparison to some challenge events plus there’s a chance to win prizes or even represent your country at the end of the season, there’s also no need for a BC race licence.

If anyone has any queries you can contact us on our Facebook page or use the email above and if you have anything you can give to BMBO in terms of time, knowledge or experience we’d be happy to have you onboard. We hold an AGM in November usually after an event and all members are welcome to attend.

Ben Martin
BMBO Marketing and Sponsorship

jekkyl, for legal reasons, it is definitely not a race. 😉
It’s as fast or as easy as you want it to be.
There’s always a few bimblers, who are just out for a scenic ride, but if you want to get anywhere near the top of the results, you’re going to need to press on, keeping your stops to a minimum, for the full three hours.

BMBO seems to be really big in t’North, Ben.
I know some of the Midlands regulars have done some of the Somerset events, and I see there’s now a South Glos area, covering from the Cotswolds to Bristol.
Hopefully, the Midlands area will grow, now that it’s part of the national club as well.

Events of the type MTQ did might not be, but there have been events organised on Cannock Chase (and other Midlands areas) which are. I suspect in the future similar events might be organised as part of Midlands MBO, given that the organisor of those was the first person to make me aware of Midlands MBO (I understand he also had a falling out with MTQ in the past, and may even have been banned from their events at one point!)

Love the dark & white series, not managed to get to the winter events though.

There not a race till the last half hour and “one more checkpoint”.

Unlike foot orienteering, where you have to visit all the control points in a set order and the winner is the runner who does so in the shortest time, BMBO, and the old MTQ, events are “score events”.
In a score event you are free to choose which control points to visit and what route you take between them. Each control point has a score and the winner is the rider with the highest total score. This makes it a “navigation event”, not a “race”.
It might seem a trivial difference, but with the UK’s strange laws, where it’s OK to hold a time trial on a road, but not on a bridleway for example, it’s what keeps it all legal.

Just to point out Graham, BMBO is the organisation name. MBO Score and MTBO (Set Order Checkpoints) are the two event types that we preside over at a national level. MTBO being similar to the foot orienteering and it’s usually held in a smaller area although there are sprint, middle and long distances. It’s a much more techjical event in terms of map reading. Good luck with the Midlands MBO!

As Ben points out both MBO score (which is what you describe) and MTBO come under the BMBO umbrella. Quite a few MTBO events around now, and as I mentioned they have been held on Cannock Chase. Personally, most of the BMBO events I’ve done have been MTBO.

Just for the sake of being pedantic, a significant proportion of the foot orienteering events I do are score events 😉

We’re trying to get more folk interested in MTBO currently. The main issue with MTBO for riders I think is the length of the event for the distance they might have to travel to get there. The score events are more attractive to most due to length and the size of the riding area. One way of getting round this is by holding 2 events on one day such as last weekend near York and holding it on the same weekend as another event like the 3 hour score on the Saturday.

Haha yes I know the Gorrick events, I am setting the checkpoints for the one on 6th April 🙂

Great, glad to hear it’s going strong, didn’t mean to sound negative and look forward to joining in again soon…

The next event in the Black Mountains series is this one, at the end of next month:

http://www.haycycling.org/bike-fest-rides/mtb/orienteering-event-bmbo

You can enter as a standalone event, no need to commit to the series.

Ah, OK, I thought MTBO events were a rarity in the UK. I’d heard of one being held on an airfield, but that was it, mainly because of the bridleway problem. I thought they were more of a European thing.
How does that work on Cannock Chase then ? Is it possible to get a decent length course in without crossing a bridleway or footpath ?

Regarding holding events on places such as the chase, the event organiser will need to gain land owner permission in some cases. The events are point to point rather than races, however I’m unsure as to how they’ve been organised in the past. Current events are generally held in private woodland with the landowners blessing. Pendle Forest Orienteers and the current National Champion organised one a couple of years ago on Longridge Fell, there were negotiations with the landowners and land managers (UPM Tilhill) withg regards to access and with the local ROW officer at Lancs County Council and they were very accomodating of the event.

Well I tried the Black Mountains event yesterday to see how it was (seeing as I only live 5 miles from the event HQ). Great fun and hard given the distances and the time allowed. My only criticism would be that the punches were far to easy to locate (even without the extra details given on the points card) taking away any advantage that good map reading skills might give.

The ones I’ve been to on the Chase, BWs were out of bounds and in theory you were supposed to stop “racing” when crossing them – though in reality I reckon that is superfluous as the law only mentions “racing on”, and it would be a bit of a stretch to suggest that you’re racing on a BW when you’re simply crossing it. No issue with FPs as you’re allowed to race on them (the RTA section in question mentions that it does not apply to FPs). Clearly with the landowner’s permission, as is always the case.

Eh? The map reading skills are to find your way to the circle on the map – once you’re in that, the punch should be easy to locate as anything else is a treasure hunt, not a test of skill. Certainly the case when using a 1:25k map where there is insufficient detail at that small a scale – though even in MTBO where you’re typically on a far more detailed map, most controls are located at obvious points as the skill is all about route choice and navigation between points. How do you think the controls should be hidden?

I should point out that I write that as somebody who relies on good map reading to do well at events rather than superior speed (yes I have been pretty fit and fast in the past, but almost never actually the fastest).

The map reading skills are to find your way to the circle on the map – once you’re in that, the punch should be easy to locate as anything else is a treasure hunt, not a test of skill.

I agree, this is certainly my philosophy when choosing checkpoint locations for score events. I can see why it might be different on a large scale map at an MTBO event.

nxb1 – yes do say hi to me at Tilford in a couple of weeks, in fact you probably won’t have much choice as I will most likely be in charge of the start/finish area!

Any feedback – on the day or subsequently – would be useful as it’s only the second time I’ve set the course (I did Tilford last year too). Want to make sure people enjoy the event as much as possible 🙂

As aracer states the controls aren’t supposed to be hidden from view. The last thing you want is to hunt through the undergrowth trying to find a dibber box or puncher. Although this has happened in the past, it’s also used in the event of a control location being near a busy area to prevent tampering! Some events do have micro nav where you’ll have a choice of a few boxes/punches in a very small area and have to choose the correct one.

For clarification, I was not advocating hiding the punches just positioning them so that there would be a greater element in map reading skill needed in locating them. There was no need to even look at the descriptions for the punches on the weekend as it was glaringly obvious where they were (gates, corners of woods, junctions of tracks etc.) and all bar one were visible from 50 meters away.

@ Graham , Do we need to re-register for new membership numbers etc as i still have my old trail quest number ? …. Im assuming we do ?

Edit …. Scratch that , found the info 🙂 … time to rejoin

If I’m orienteering well (foot orienteering) I won’t ever look at the descriptions. I don’t see any problem with what you’re describing – finding the control once you’ve navigated to the center of the circle isn’t supposed to be part of the skill.

In theory for foot orienteering the control descriptions are there to simply narrow down the control where there may be a few in an area that the map detail can’t show. Sometimes it helps sometimes it doesn’t.
I did do a 24hr rogaine (called TWALK) which actually hide the fckn controls but you know that and its part of the ‘fun’. MTBO is generally more simple for control placement and access but I am of the view you should be navigationally tested so off track controls you can get to are all go when i set courses.
When I get to Edinburgh I’m quite keen to keep MTBO’ing and run a few rogaines as well.

@ Graham , Do we need to re-register for new membership numbers etc as i still have my old trail quest number ? …. Im assuming we do ?

Edit …. Scratch that , found the info … time to rejoin

For 6 quid a year it’s well worth it, particularly for the member benefits.

Ben Martin
BMBO Marketing and Sponsorship

BenjiM – Member

For 6 quid a year it’s well worth it, particularly for the member benefits.

Ben Martin
BMBO Marketing and Sponsorship Could it not be 6 quid for 12 months, rather than a calender year? Paid 6 quid on top of the entry fee for one event in November – my fault, like, but assumed that was how it would work.

Welshfarmer, I think I was sat at a table with you after the event. You were talking to Mike, the farmer from Gloucestershire, about cows and we looked at my map with my route marked in pink highlighter.

Funny you should mention the figure of 50m, because I’ve always said that when I set out a course, if someone can navigate to within 50m of the CP, then the CP, or at least the feature it’s attached to, should be clearly visible.

A gate across the track is an ideal location. As long as you are on the right track, then you can’t miss a gate as you’ve got to stop and open it anyway.
Bridges are good too. As a general rule, if you’re going down hill, you haven’t got there yet.
I’d rather plan my route, then press on to an obvious landmark.
I don’t want to ride along slowly searching for one particular tree in the hedge.

Yes that was me, I remember it well. Don’t get me wrong, it was in no way meant negatively with regard to the event which I thought was very well laid on. I guess, since it was my first ever bike orienteering event I had somehow imagined the navigational aspect of it would have been more important than the speed aspect. I must admit that nav is one of my hobbies/life skills (I have done a fair bit in an earlier life!) and perhaps I see things as easy where others might not. To me though it appeared to be more of a XC race than any sort test of map reading skills. However, I also was able to see in retrospect how I could have gained a better score for the same distance covered (though it would have involved more climbing which is where I struggle at the mo). I will certainly be coming along to the next one, trying out a few new things learn last WE, and will hopefully be a bit fitter too 😀

What’s confusing me is the idea that nav isn’t important because checkpoints are visible from 50m away. You still have to navigate to within 50m of the CP, and it is quite clear from the events I’ve done that there is a huge amount of time to be gained from navigating well whilst on the move (I’ve quite often overtaken people who are quite clearly faster riders than me, so it’s far from a XC race). Not only that, but lots of route choice challenge as well. I just don’t understand why you don’t think it a navigational challenge to navigate to within 50m of a CP. Not wanting to be unfair here, but I have to wonder whether you think the navigational challenge was lacking because your navigational skills aren’t tuned to this sort of challenge – not surprising even for a very good navigator at your first event, there being a difference between normal navigation and navigation at speed under a race situation.

Bearing in mind here than 50m on a 1:25k map is only 2mm, given some symbols are almost that big, the accuracy on such a map isn’t a lot better than that. The sort of accuracy of checkpoint location you’re after ends up being more of a treasure hunt than a navigational exercise.

Perhaps it was not the best area to start on as there are only a very limited number of bridleways and they are well spread so choice of route was pretty much limited and for the bulk of the punches (20 from 25) there was only 1 option to cover the ground. So you ride that route till you hit a gate (punch), pass the corner of a wood (punch), hit the next gate (punch), cross the next bridge (punch), etc. For me it would have been more of a challenge if the punches had been, for example, a couple of hundred metres before or after the gate on a bend in the track or on the 2nd stream crossing, or a junction with a field boundary, all of which are shown clearly on the 1:25K. Or along the edge of the forest by the 2nd fire break or the small kink in the fence line. The route would be unchanged, but you would have to constantly be reading the map and the terrain. But like I have said. I came into the event with expectations of what to expect. It appears it is done somewhat differently. I have no problem with that. Just means I need to up my fitness by another notch if I ever want to be properly competitive.

how many entrants are expected to attend next sunday at Cannock and is there any restrictions on entrance, basically am I okay to go round with my mate?

You can see the current entry list HERE for the event. You’ll need to speak to the organisers regarding following your mate, but the insurance wouldn’t cover you in the event of any incident. You can enter as a day rider to see if it’s for you rather than pay the full membership.

Garry Lager, I’m not entirely sure why the membership pricing changed to the way it did but I’ll find out. Was it the Hayfield MBO Score from Dark and White? I think I remember seeing your name on Strava logs for that day.

Welshfarmer, if you enter an event in a built up area (Some of the Dark and Whites for example) there really can be a challenge in navigation, particularly if an area is new to you. It isn’t just about the navigation. The three critical areas are fitness, navigational skills and route choice. When (hopefully!) you try more events you’ll notice how they differ in various areas. 🙂

Ben Martin
BMBO Marketing & Sponsorship

Ah, fair enough – I maybe agree with you then (though I’ve not seen the event map), but I doubt it would have made a huge difference to the navigational challenge.

Just means I need to up my fitness by another notch if I ever want to be properly competitive.

Of course the top guys are both fit and fast and good at navigation. As I alluded above, there is also a difference between being good at navigation in normal circumstances and being good at navigation at speed whilst on the move. Admittedly I have sometimes won events when not the fastest, but that’s only when either the best aren’t there or they make mistakes.

but that’s only when either the best aren’t there or they make mistakes.

Or they suffer a horendous run of punctures, eh Fizz? 😉 (I know you’re watching!)