This event is now firmly established in the ‘O’ calendar put on by BAOC and taking place between Christmas and New Year. This year the event was held on Wednesday 28^th December at Long Valley North and South, Aldershot and comprised of MTBO and Foot O courses.

Madeleine and I arrived at 10.30 to find many cars already parked and mountain bikes well in evidence. We were lucky in that the weather was kind being dry and fresh but with the recent rains Long Valley had plenty of water to contend with out on the courses.

There were very few WIM members taking part and apart from myself Melanie Rayner did the Medium MTBO (24K) course coming 16^th in a time of 2.42.53 and Paul Pickering the Blue Foot O course (8.3K) finishing 5^th in 1.04.03. However the event was very well attended with 92 entries on the MTBO courses and 245 entries on the Foot O courses.

Well I started feeling good at 11.00am and was handed at the start 3 maps. Map 1 was Long Valley North and comprised the first 18 controls and as this area is fairly flat I found it straight forward and was happy with my progress although I did err on the side of the longer safe route on several occasions.

It was then turn over to map 2 which was Long Valley South and immediately it was a different ball game. Steep climbs and more technical orienteering and I did find with the 1:15,000 scale I was having difficulty reading the fine detail. During this section which comprised of 13 controls it did rain hard for a short period which was unpleasant and I did find on a couple of occasions that I had to push my bike up the steep slopes and on 1 occasion even down a steep slope. I also see that on one leg I did make a route choice that involved quite a bit of climb that could have been avoided.

It was then back over the road and map 3 which was again Long Valley North for the final 6 controls. This time for some reason which I can only think was tiredness I did not find the route choices quite as easy and I eventually finished the course of 24K in 2 hours 57 minutes and 49 seconds. I was a little disappointed with my time and put it down not only to the 1:15.000 map scale but possibly the over indulgence of Christmas and a few late nights.

However the event was very well planned the MTBO courses by Dave Rollins and the Foot O courses by Colin Dickson. Now looking back on the results I feel a little happier as I finished 22^nd out of 49 starters and was the 3^rd M60 to finish.

On the Long MTBO course of 32.7K there were 18 starters with 46 controls and this was won by Al Powell an M40 in 2.20.52. On the Medium MTBO course of 24K with 37 controls there were 49 starters and this was won by Richard Jones an M45 in 1.57.18 with Emily Benham in 2^nd place in 2.00.09. Gavin Clegg was a creditable 6^th, Nigel Benham 9^th and Melanie Slade 16^th.

An excellent event and one I can recommend to you all for next year.

Trevor Bridle