Mountain Devils Orienteering Club

SuperSeries Event #7 - 23 September 2007

Wingello State Forest - Supreme Singletrack (or Very Long)

The Official Report

After all the warm-ups on the previous day, word had got around – and we had about 75 riders for what would turn out to be another very long event. I’m going to have to do something about my course-setting to keep these course lengths under control!

Another mass start for everybody, but followed today by a standard line course. The groans from the long course riders were a response to the first leg – 25 minutes of down and back up the big gullies to the southern half of the map.

Everybody got to ride on some of the great singletrack being constructed around Wingello by Wild Horizons (Huw Kingston), Forests NSW, and an assortment of volunteers. If you enjoyed the singletrack – keep an eye out for notices, and head on down to help out with track construction or maintenance. Huw has plenty of plans for more singletrack to come.

With a spectator control at the corner of Forest Camp, the organisers were able to monitor progress of riders on both the medium and long courses – definitely adds interest from our perspective.

And then we had some finishers. Colette Read scorched around the short course to beat all-comers. Andrew Vesey-Wells completed the double on the men’s short course.

In the medium, first home was Stuart Wilson, closely followed by Jim Anderson. Jill McNaught won the women’s medium course.

In the absence of Darvo, Richard Mountstephens pipped David Simpfendorfer. But the outstanding ride of the day had to be Marcel van Schie coming home on his singlespeed 29er just 6 minutes behind Richard for third place.

Melanie Simpson reversed the result from the previous day, beating Katrin Van der Spiegel on the women’s long course.

The Singlespeeder Perspective

Sunday dawned a spectacular, clear, classic southern highland day. Long was promised to be such and two maps appeared at the start, confirming our fears.

A quick look and there it was - both monster gullies before the first checkpoint. I was ready to cry! But, there was an alternative strategy for a simple singlespeeder and it was worth the gamble ... a big, circuitous route and lots of mad leg spinning took me to the first checkpoint ahead of all except speedy Richard and David S.

Jiri and Patrick decided that I might be thinking well on the day and followed me to 2 and then to 3 where we almost caught Richard.

We punched and then headed down a big hill.

A big walk up out of the gully and the geared boys were again caught due to their indecision. Jiri was looking for breakfast in the bushes and Patrick looked to be hunting koalas as I rode past them on the fire trail.

Some mysterious unmapped (Sorry David W!) singletracks but Jiri held firm and led us to CP 4 and then towards 5. More mysterious motorbike trails and a hunt identified 5. Jiri and Patrick hesitated in following me to 5 which gave me the opportunity to ride away from them on the single track to 6 and then 7.

A big push and lots more singletrack and eventually I got to the 'murdering gully' in which CP 13 lived. It was in David West's favorite (and horrid) location, so I knew where to find it. A big walk out, thighs starting to cramp and sure enough - David S and Richard were spotted! I could not push my gear anymore from 15 so carried the bike up the 'indistinct' trail to the track and then used whatever was left in me to spin back home.

Richard popped David for 1st in - an excellent result against the highest ranked rider on the day - and I was ecstatic to come in third only a few minutes down on these two speedsters.

Credits
Planning: David West
Organisation: David West, Rik Eagles
Registration: Carolyn Chalmers
SportIdent: Rik Eagles
Setup/Packup: Michael Roylance, Rob Prentice, Phill Frisardi
Control Collection: Huw Kingston, Chris Bayliss, Kate Chown, Jiri Cech, Simon Nott, Graeme McLeod