Nopesport

Dalbeattie map was created specially for the event

The South West of Scotland, in particular two of the well renowned Seven Staines mountain biking centres, hosted this year’s British mountain biking championships. Consisting of a long race on the Saturday and a middle distance on the Sunday, the numerous technical trails of Dalbeattie and Mabie Forests respectively were to offer great riding while Janine Inman’s planning (and mapping, and organising!) certainly made the best of the two areas.

While these races tested both navigation and biking, they also tested many competitors bikes and field repair skills! Not many competitors got through both days unscathed, with all sorts of ad-hoc repairs and tube changes required both before, during and after the races! Such incidents certainly affected the results over both days, but such is the nature of mountain bike orienteering, and it is certainly part of the challenge and skills needed to compete.

Saturday’s race at Dalbeattie saw quicker times than intended with Andy Conn taking the A course convincingly with a strong ride, completing the 13km course in a time of 76:51 (real distance over 25km), while Emily Benham also took a convincing victory on the B course in a time of 81:59. Much of the challenge on these courses was riding hard between controls with some minor route choices and micro navigation, and finding the small tracks that some of the controls were sited on.

A Course 13.1 km 20 C

1 Andy Conn M40 1:16:51
2 Jimmy Taylor M21 1:20:05
3 Bryan Singleton M40 1:21:15
4 Steve Nicholson M40 1:21:53
5 Bruce Duncan M21 1:22:08
6 Ian Nixon M21 1:23:54

B Course 12.2 km 18 C

1 Emily Benham W20 1:21:59
2 Tony Brand-Barker M50 1:25:26
3 Angela Brand-Barker W40 1:28:06
4 Heather Monro W21 1:35:35
5 Sarah Bayliss W40 1:35:55
6 Charlotte Somers-Cocks W40 1:36:42

C Course 7.2 km 12 C

1 Karen Blackburn W50 1:11:24
2 Bill Taylor M60 1:12:25
3 Annette Milburn W50 1:28:48

Dalbeattie: Full Results | Splits | Routegadget

Mabie Forest, just south west of Dumfries, hosted the middle distance which made up for the previous day’s slight underplanning by being a bit overlong! There wouldn’t have been many complaints at this however as the mixture of technical and high speed trails made for brilliant riding, while there was plenty of route choice and one or two testing controls that punished those not paying attention, as did the one way systems! The more physical nature of the forest, with plentiful climb and some long way round routes meant winning times were only 10 minutes quicker than the previous day for the A course.

Jimmy Taylor was the convincing winner on the A course, with a 6 minute lead from Bruce Duncan and Andy Conn, completing the 11km course (real distance around 20km) in a time of 67:23. On the B Course the Brand-Barker family took a clean sweep, Chris taking victory by a minute from his father Tony with mum Angela a further minute back!

A Course 11.2 km 18 C

1 Jimmy Taylor M21 1:07:23
2 Bruce Duncan M21 1:13:20
3 Andy Conn M40 1:13:31
4 Andrew Windrum M21 1:16:39
5 Steve Nicholson M40 1:18:20
6 Peter Strong M40 1:19:17

B Course 8.3 km 14 C

1 Christopher Brand-Barker M20 1:00:46
2 Tony Brand-Barker M50 1:01:54
3 Angela Brand-Barker W40 1:02:39
4 Emily Benham W20 1:04:58
5 Heather Monro W21 1:08:42
6 Bob Cherry M50 1:08:45

C Course 6.3 km 8 C

1 Annette Milburn W50 1:06:10
2 Fergus McCarroll Y18 1:07:48
3 Bill Taylor M60 1:11:02

Mabie: Full Results | Splits | Routegadget

So British Mountain Bike Champions for 2008 are Andy Conn and Emily Benham in the Long and Jimmy Taylor and Angela Brand-Barker in the Middle. Congratulations to them, and to Janine Inman and her small group of helpers for putting on a couple of great events.

These races were also the final selection races for the World and European Championships, and the following teams have since been selected, congratulations to all those travelling to Poland and Lithuania later this year.

World Championships, Poland - 24-31 August 2008
Women: Sarah Bayliss, Emily Benham (W20), Angela Brand-Barker, Charlotte Somers-Cocks
Men: No Team

European Champs, Lithuania - 22-28 September 2008
Women: Emily Benham (W20 or 21)
Men: Andy Conn, Ian Nixon, Byran Singleton, Mark Stodgell, James Taylor, Andrew Windrum

Testing courses at Mabie.