My Mountain Bike Orienteering Year

by Kevin Pickering

Last year, I cycled to a World Masters Silver and Bronze medal at the MTBO championship in Slovenia and came 1st in the world M70 league results, and this year I wanted to try to complete the set of medals. The championships were going to be held in Denmark in August so a good long time to prepare.

My year started pre -Christmas in getting fit for races, mainly to strengthen the stomach muscles by doing sit ups. In January I completed 3000 doing 100 a day. The static indoor bike was also used a lot especially when it was cold, it’s a great way to heat up.

The first Masters event I went to this year was in Spain, just near the border with Portugal. I flew into Lisbon airport and when I collected my hire car, they wanted to charge me a silly amount of Euros for taking the car across borders, so I parked at the border and cycled 6km with my kit and clothes to my hotel. It thenmeant I had to cycle to the event the next morning 8km to a sprint race, so I was nicely warmed up. I managed to win that race and then found the afternoons event was 25km the other side of the town, someone kindly took my bike, and I got a lift in another car. The afternoon event ended in rain, and I was very lucky that someone took pity on me and dropped me back in town after a very long race on army sand dunes where I mispunched so was disqualified, but luckily it was only a practice event.

For the following day's middle distance race, I had to check out the Hotel and carry everything to the event. The event was held on a lovely area with several areas where you were allowed to free bike, this meant you did not have to stick to the paths and bridleways that you are normally only allowed to cycle on. All was going well for me, until 3 controls 1km from the finish, I was coming fast down an open area which was coved in long grass, next thing I knew I was headbutting the ground with my bike on top of me, I had dropped down a small hidden ditch and flew over the handlebars. First you check yourself, yes all seems OK nothing hurting too much, then your bike, all seems to be OK, then where am I and which way am I going. Telling myself all is good I finish the race in my usual style, which is to put everything into a race if I know I have been riding and orienteering well.

I usually collapse at the end of a race and have to take a few minutes of deep breathing to recover, but at this event there was an ambulance at the finish. With none of the ambulance crew speaking English, who I think thought I was having a heart attack, as unknown to me blood was covering a lot of my face from the crash. They were thinking the worst. I was thinking I had had a good race apart from a minor hiccup! I was checked over and cleaned up and declared OK, then the result came that I was in 1st place.

From Lisbon I flew direct to Hungary for an event the following weekend, a sprint and middle event above the largest lake in central Europe. The car park and assembly area were fun as the organisers had to put some tapes around lots of very small flowers that were a protected species and we were asked not to drive, walk or ride over any on the courses, which is rather difficult when you’re racing. I blame the small flowers for slowing me down as I lost the sprint race by 18 second and the next day’s middle by a few minutes to an Austrian who has been Mountain bike orienteering for over 30 years, and he is an international controller.

I came home for 8 days and then flew to Geneva airport for a race in the French alps around the famous ski resort of Morzine. This was a 5-day event with 2 races counting for the world league results.It was also the French championships so there was a really good atmosphere to the event. Again, I achieved 2 second places beaten this time, by a very fast German, but I did make mistakes on route choice. This event ended with a fabulous relay event up, and down the ski slopes. I wish the drag lifts had been working!

Back to Geneva airport direct to Prague, Czech Republic where I spent a few days touring before the event. The event was based in a small village in the mountains 200km from Prague. The sprint event went all around the small roads of the village including going through villagers’ gardens and passing through their barns. Many of the villagers were having picnics and cheering us on, and playing on the loudspeakers scattered around the village, was the Queen song I WANT TO RIDE MY BYCYCLE, I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE. A little bit off putting until I reminded myself, I was in a race. I rode and orienteered very well and beat the Austrian by 2mins. That night most of the village turned up the event campsite for the entertainment, food and Czech beer. Next morning when I arrived at the car park at 8.00 some of the car parking teams were drinking beer and some of the competitor’s as well. Czech beer is sometimes cheaper than water and coffee and tastes good, but I waited until after the race. The Austrian got his revenge today. Still I did win a hip flask and some cannabis cream. I think I prefer the cheese beer and mustard I won last year.

Home for a couple of weeks before driving to Scotland for a World Master’s event and the British champs. I’m not sure if my winning the title of M70 British Sprint, middle and long champion means a lot when there are only 2 in the class, but you’ve got to be in it to win it.

Next up was an event in Romania, where we decided to have a summer holiday as well, It was a good decision to arrive 20 days before the event as I adjusted to the high temperature and the high altitude. The locals recommended visiting salt lakes and covering yourself in smelly mud as they said it was good for one’s health. I think just going orienteering normally is the same.

The courses had to be amended before the event, so we didn’t cycle through the woods where a bear had been spotted. They also changed my course as I was the only competitor and had me competing on a much longer course, which was too far for me. However I did manage to finish. It was good training for the world championship the following week.

Ryanair upset all the plans for the Worlds by telling me 2 weeks before the event that they had cancelled the flight that I had booked in January, but I could rebook or cancel and get my money back, which they had for 8 months. I did manage to rebook for the day before but then had to rebook a much more expensive car hire for 1 extra day and an extra £48 for one day more parking at Stansted airport

This year I had cycled over 1500 kms, and climbed 10,000 mts in quality training This sometimes led to cramp in the evenings after training, I tried to counter the cramps by drinking lots but that means having to get up in the night and then waking tired in the morning.

The World Masters Mountain bike championship 2024 was held in Viborg, Denmark with over 400 competitors from 27 countries in 5-year age classes. My class M70, had 28 competitors

The first event was a mass start where you get your map 15 second before you start. The WMMTBO website promised the day would have “forest with a dense network of tracks and small hills with tracks that will twist your brain around during the whole race. It also listed my course as being 18km with 490 mt climb. My thoughts before the race were that I was not good at maintaining concentration for long races and as it was a long way with lots of climb, I would use it as a practice and if it got too tiring, retire and save my legs. It worked out that the orienteering was great fun and a lot of the hills you could go fast downhill and use your speed to take you up the next hill. I was starting in the front row and got away up the hill leading the group towards the 1st control,where the course is split into various gaffles. Good organising also had a blow up of the intricate part of the map to 1 to 5000. I completed this section very well and was starting to enjoy myself, always a bad idea when I am competing, as you stop doing the things you should be doing, concentrating and planning, but the next 12 controls went OK. I then lost it a little bit due to riding down a horrible small path with lots of roots, twists and turns and fallen trees and had to spend time relocating, luckily on a track I recognised that I had been down before. The finish was nice down, 2 roads about 400 mt long and then 300 mts up a small hill. I looked behind me on the road and there was no one in sight, so as your position is as you cross the line, I didn’t push too hard, but as I came towards the finish someone came up towards me very fast, I tried to respond but he beat me on the line, but I was relieved to see he was much younger than me. As I was recovering, one of my main competitors finished 25 seconds after me and the organiser came over to him and said congratulations you’ve won. He responded by saying Kevin had finished and won. My reply was I hadn’t downloaded yet and I hoped everything had punched correctly. I went to download with everything crossed and a little prayer, yes everything was OK, and I was a World Masters Champion with a gold medal to prove it.

Wow, emotions on full burn, all those hours of training well worth it in a race I didn’t expect to do that well in. I celebrated with a cold sea swim and a large Danish cake.

Next day’s race was a middle distance and all I can say is the adrenaline must have still been overflowing as I completely mucked up the first control riding off the map, taking 25 mins to ride 500 mts. So, then I just slowed down and enjoyed the rest of the course.

      
M70 Mass Start                   M70 Sprint

Friday 9th August MTBO Sprint The weather changed.

Super wet riding on mountain bike tracks, on what would have been fast tracks, but it turned into horrible weather, with lots of mud, and very slippery. Luckily for me it stopped raining about 20 mins. before my start time The difficulty was, when you rode through the puddles you had no idea if they were 2 inches deep or 2 foot and when you are going as fast as you can it’s a bit scary, but my race went reasonably well. At the end I had made a couple of small errors and one route choice mistake and was expecting to be off the podium, but all my main competitors had a longer time than me and I was in first place, when the heavens opened and all the electronics cut out. I was expecting at prize giving another possible gold medal, but was announced in Silver place 56 seconds behind the winner who had had a clean race with no mistakes

The final race a long-distance event, 24 km straight line route, so it meant about 30km riding but with very little climb.It all started well with a 5km leg to the first control and a further 9 controls before map change in the assembly area for a second loop around the forest. Just after this map change, I chose a route through the forest on a minor track which was a bad choice as I had to ride and push over many fallen trees and when I got to the main track jumped back on the bike and my pedals just went round and round. I thought the chain had just come off the gears but when I looked the gears were at a funny angle. I tried to straighten them first, by pulling and pushing, then smacking them with a large stone, I then saw the chain was all bent as well so my race was over. At least it was close to the finish, so it was only a 2km walk back.

The championships were very competitive as out of the 12 medals available 8 different riders had won a medal. All the races had been held in good areas and the organisation was great and now we look forward to the 2025 World Masters in Murcia Spain

So the week ended but I still had one more trip to the podium, as I had retained my World Masters League M70 title

2024. A good year.

World Masters M70 Championship 2024.      Gold --  Mass start

Silver --  Sprint.                                                    First World League

    

 

Background: northern & central Denmark from Google Maps