For the final event of this years series we took you to the Teign Valley, on the Eastern fringes of Dartmoor.
I had always had reservations about using this area with the Drogo NT asking a somewhat extortionate £100 for the licence to use such a small area, but once into the woodland you find that there is a good track network working around the hillside. Add to this, probably the best single track in the Southwest between CP23 and CP19 around the front of castle Drogo, then the price doesn't seem so bad!!!
The course was split into three distinct areas, the flatter wooded lakeside area to the south, the moorland hill of Marden Down in the centre, and the steep wooded valley of the Teign Valley to the north.
The Saturday prior to the event was spent placing the CP's. Faye once again helped put these out, but after a few teething problems at the previous event we made sure we had both walked the area before hand!!! The morning started in lovely autumnal sunshine and spirts were high, but as the day progressed the stormclouds swept in, and by mid-afternoon a full scale storm was upon us. Not even this though, could dampen my spirit as I swept down the fast singletrack in front of Drogo, to the final rendezvous of the day, and by 1600 the two drown rats were home watching the 2nd half of the football!!!
Race day started uncharacteristically late ( the joys of living locally) under thick black clouds in a steady downpour of rain, but by the time we had set the hall up, the clouds had moved on leaving a pleasant sunny morning. It was good to see most riders turning up early, as requested, and by 10am all the riders were out on the course.
There seemed a pretty even split of riders either heading south to the flatter reservoirs, and those heading north to tackle the steep valley first.
Of all the CP's CP21 caused the riders the most problems with the entrance tracks into this ancient section of track network being indistinct or slightly overgrown!!!
We did have one CP (CP10) stolen which detracted slightly from a few of the later riders experience (there seems to be a pattern emerging, a CP is stolen, then Ian Cartwright is the first to find it missing. This has now happened at Burrator, Winsford Hill, and here!!! If Ian ever offers you to buy an SI kit, be suspicious!!!)
While all the riders were out on the course, I was just left to copy the league table calculator file over from the memorystick onto the laptop then wait for the riders to return. Simples!!! NOT. As soon as I clicked to open calculator file, I was greeted with the message calculator file does not exist!! yes it does, it was there on the list 2 seconds ago. But alas it had disappeared and no matter how hard i looked i could not retrieve it from anywhere!!! With no internet reception I could not even view the current standings and work using them!! The last hope I had was to go wondering around the village looking rather stupid waving my phone around in an attempt to get a signal, fortunately this worked, and i managed to download an offline version of the league table, then back in the hall was able to rewrite the complex formula for working out the league points. This was just completed as the first of the riders returned. With the league points being calculated on the average score of all the riders, we could not calculate the final standings until every rider was back in. This gave everyone plenty of time to mingle and compare routes and experiences with fellow riders while enjoying tea and cakes.
With the last of the riders in, we could now calculate the standings for both event trophies, and league trophies.
On the day, 1st place & M40 class winner went to Ifor Powell, with 478 from a possible 600. In 2nd & M40 class winner was Ian Cartwright, some 77 pts behind Ifor, with Peter Newman taking 3rd place. Other class winners were: Leuan Best Y18, Jacob Forster M21, Izzy Boyd W21, Gill Stott W50, Nigel Worsey M60, the normally sworn enemies Martin Walbank & Stuart Ball Pairs, with Janet Burroughes & Matt Jepson taking the Mixed Pairs.
In the League it was a battle between 4 riders for the top 3 honours. In the end Ian cartwright managed to hold off Ifor's late rally to take 1st by a mere 50pts with a total just over 6000. The battle for 3rd between Nigel Worsey and James Jackson ended as it had started with Nigel pipping James to the remaining trophy. In the Pairs, with Martin from team Martin&Mark joining forces with arch rival Stuart from team Tim&Stuart, it meant that the table would remain as it was at the beginning of the day with Janet Burroughes & Matt Jepson taking 1st, Martin Walbank & Mark Pollard taking 2nd, and Tim Redmond & Stuart Ball taking 3rd.
With all the trophies presented, and the riders on their way, it was just left to us to clean the hall and collect in Check Points. Thanks to everyone who helped clean up, and especially to James Jackson and Jon Dodwell for helping collect in CP's meaning we had them all in before it got dark (and we didn't get rained on, you'll be pleased to know Martin ;) )
We hope you all enjoyed this year's series and hope to see you all again next year when we maybe introducing some big changes......
Will & Faye.