Cropton Forest Organiser’s Comments
Dave Lloyd planned an excellent course with plenty of route choice avoiding the worst of the muddy single tracks. I imagine that most riders will have gone further than they normally do in a 3 hour forest event. It was forecast to be windy but it was nice and sheltered in the forest.
Thanks as ever to Jens for another excellent map; Dave Lloyd for putting out all of the controls; Geoff Moorhouse, Karen Blackburn, Frank & Sandra Appleton for their help on the day; then Dave Lloyd, Ray Morriss, Andrew Windrum, Tim Evans, Dave Evans, Adrian & Luke Parker for collecting them in so that we could leave by 6.00.
It was great to see nearly 70 riders for the first event of the season including quite a few newcomers. Congratulations to Andy Conn (M50) for winning overall and nearly clearing up with 513 points; Andrew Windrum M40-480; Adrian & Luke Parker Gen-392; Dennis Jaques M60-385; Sheila Pearce W40-381; Ray Morris M70-375; James Martin M21-365; Karen Blackburn W70-270; Ben Houlihan M18-250 You can follow all of their routes using the splits file and course map on the NYMBO site.
I enjoyed my ride as I was able to miss out the low value controls and the Hartoft valley so that I got back in time to download the first finishers.
Unfortunately, 2 controls (47 & 57) were put out in each other's location and #49 had been incorrectly programmed as #31. I have hopefully adjusted all of your scores but please let me know if yours is still incorrect.
Thanks also to the staff at Keldy Cabins for accommodating us. The cafe made an excellent event centre and I managed to avoid seeing the rugby scores before I got home.
Please note that the Gilling MTBO event planned for May 6th has been cancelled so you can now save your energy for the Howardian Hills event in the afternoon.
Don't forget that I will be retiring at the end of the season after 20 years so the Nidderdale event will be my last. I would like to hear from someone who is interested in taking on the coordinators's role or a few people who would like to manage the events between them. I will still plan an event every year and ride whenever we're not on holiday, seeing the family or playing golf!!
The next event will be a 4 hour Score event on the Yorkshire Wolds based at Bishop Wilton village hall. Karen & Richard Clark have planned an excellent course so I hope to see you there.
Steve

Planner's comments
After my first planning visit in January, slithering and sliding about on some of the smaller tracks, I decided to put all controls on or near to a road or track which would be reliable whatever the weather. So, to make it competitive for the elite riders, I stretched the area almost to the limit. I didn't really expect anyone to score over 500 but as ever Andy Conn proved me wrong.
Quite a crowd built up eager to be off as soon as possible after 12:00. I couldn't decide if they were keen to get back in time for the England /Ireland match or wanted to give themselves a chance of picking up a spot prize. As it happens not one of the 15 people who visited #37 claimed that particular token.
My thanks go to Keldy Cabins who made us most welcome at an excellent venue and as ever to the collectors; Dave, Andy, Tim, Adrian, Luke and Ray.
Dave Lloyd. Course planner