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Nick had found an ideal area for this weeks event, a real maze of roads, lots of route choice and plenty of junctions to make mistakes at. It was also a very hilly area, I don't think I found a flat bit of road all night. The hills were due to the fact that we had to hop between 3 valleys, those of the rivers Greta, Wenning and Hindburn. Which ever way you headed at the start, it was uphill, with a choice of steep or very steep. The area south of the River Wenning should be familiar to a few of us, it was covered in a Lanequest from Wray in the 2002 series.
Nick's optimum route to get all the controls was 23 22 18 19 28 29 30 27 26 24 25 21 20 15 16 14 8 13 12 9 4 2 1 5 3 7 6 10 11 17 or reverse and this covered 32 miles. Paul Trott on 290 was the nights clear winner managing to get all controls except 19, the nearest to him was a score of 250. There was an impressive performance by Rachel Slattery with a score of 225, followed by Carol and Philippa on 200. Jason Webb had a good run getting 110 and there were 2 strong teams from Croppers both scoring 190.
There were 70 entrants this week, the numbers still low compared to last years series, but Nick managed to raise £102.50 for the Burton-in-Lonsdale Village Hall Appeal. There were some splendid views across to the famous 3 peaks and we were constantly in the shadow of Ingleborough. It was nice to see the Great Stone of Fourstones with the steps carved into it at the highest point on the route by control no. 25. There was a bit of wildlife, but it had to fight against the strong SE wind. It had forecast rain in the evening all day long and it started with a few light spots at about 20:30 but didn't come on heavy until everyone was back to the finish by 21:00.
As for controls to be leaving out, well 4 and 9 were on a bit of a limb and 18 and 19 were in the middle, getting them would have meant deviating from a peripheral loop. I chose a clockwise loop and remember thinking it was an awful long way from 22 to 28. Control 30 had steep hills on either side of it. It was a toss up how to get between 26 and 24, I went the bottom way, Mr Morriss just behind me went the top way and there was very little between us. No. 20 took a bit of finding, there are so many fingerposts round that area that I wasn't sure I was looking for the right one. There was some serious speed to be had from 15 down to 13, I clocked 43 mph before employing the brakes. The road to 4 was very rough and dirty, full of bends, not fast at all. The same goes for the road to the east of 3 with the gate in it. I had to skip a few controls in the name of getting back on time. It took longer than expected from 6 to climb all the way up to 10 and beyond. I left out 11 and got 17 to arrive back with a mere 17 seconds to spare. I owe this to Derek Fryer who very swiftly handed the punch over to me at control 14, he knew that every second counted.
There was another competition going on this week as to who could be the latest back. Ray Morriss felt he should be a winner at 2 hours 9 mins, but he was beaten hands down by another 3 people who were 15 mins late! The penalty for this behaviour was a docking of 75 points. There was more mechanical trouble with chains on Tuesday too, I believe that the pair on the tandem, N & D Walker snapped a chain and had rather a long jog back to the finish. I hope they haven't been taking bike maintenance lessons off Ken Shepherd.
Thanks Nick for a challenging event and some accurate course planning. Thanks too to the helpers at the start and the finish, and thanks to everyone for turning up.
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