A massive 125 participants took on Newcastle's monthly mountain bike orienteering course at Holmesville on Sunday, setting a new record for attendance outside a big championship.
The club has been growing its MTBO participation nicely over the past 2 years and was blown away by the turnout on a cooler summer's day.
With a particular focus on making newcomers (especially families) feel welcome, their efforts are being rewarded.
They had just enough maps but Joy Guy had to race home to pick up the street SI cards as they had run out of the club's SI hire sticks.
This venue was used for the 2019 NSW Long Distance MTBO champs - in very wet conditions - but BOSS 4 offered much more favourable riding.
Greg Bacon and Robert Prentice spread the 30 controls on an A3 map at 1:5000 for easier reading of the intricate track network, and only Tim Doman and Steven Todkill managed to clear the course in the 75 minutes allowed.
Here's some of the lovely feedback from rookies:
Carmen Allen: "Thank you so much to the organisers and volunteers. First timer today and even though I run all these trails regularly it was still a great challenge to navigate and find the controls. Looking forward to the next one already."
Michelle Caslick: "Thank you for an incredible morning. It was our first MTB orienteering event and absolutely loved it! Everyone was so welcoming and so helpful - loved that we were guided to what needed to be done when we arrived made it so much easier - thank you!"
Stacey Levin: "This was my first orienteering event and I absolutely loved it, will definitely be back".
You can see our 2020 MTBO calendar here.
Thanks again to the Newcastle club for their excellent work. The next event is on February 16 at Fairley Dams.
