Victorian MTBO Championships National MTBO Series

CASTLEMAINE – 22-23 APRIL 2023

REPORT: CAROLYN JACKSON

PHOTOS: PETER CUSWORTH

We had a glorious autumn weekend of perfect riding weather for the Victorian MTBO Championships based near Castlemaine. The championships were also the first round of the National MTBO Series and a selection trial for the World MTBO Championships in August.

On Saturday, the sprint and middle were on the outskirts of Castlemaine in the Walmer Forest, and they shared the same assembly area, using a handy paddock, with the sprint being south of the bitumen road, and the middle the much bigger area north. The whole map has a vast single-track network, and James Robertson (sprint) and Ricky Thackray (middle) made full use of this, setting complex and testing courses. Even though the Walmer Forest map has been used previously, it’s many years and many kilometres of new single track since it’s last use, so it really felt brand new.

The sprint had us racing back and forth across a small area, which meant you not only had to navigate extremely carefully at high speed, with constant direction changes, but also avoid other riders. Controls seemed to be everywhere, but you had to make sure you were at the right one! A very worthy sprint! Time to rest between events, but you also needed to rest your brain to prepare for what Ricky threw at us! In the middle, all courses went straight into a very complex and rocky network of single track. Route choice, which had to be mastered immediately, proved crucial, with the not necessarily obvious choices of going around and trying to leave it as late as possible to dive in, usually proving best.

After a couple of challenging legs in there, we moved to other single-track areas, with the intensity rarely letting up. Another very good event, and again, those who managed to maintain map contact and pick clever routes came to the fore.

An event dinner and presentations were held on Saturday night at a great pub just out of Castlemaine. This gave a good chance to catch up with others from all around the country, and not in bike gear!

The next day, the long was only 15 minutes towards Maldon, in the Muckleford Forest Rob Edmonds from Nillumbik Emus was the course setter, and what a contrast. Not only did we need to adjust to the 1:20,000 scale, it was a completely different style of orienteering, with long fast legs and plenty of route choice. A great mix of fire roads, large fast dirt roads and single track, but it was important not to come unstuck by riding too fast and missing sometimes hard-to-see junctions. This area also has many navigation challenges, and Rob made good use of these, saving the hillier and more complex area until the end when we were getting tired.

James, Rob and Ricky [who also won M21 sprint and long] were backed up with a large team of volunteers. Bendigo Orienteers for the sprint, who also did both starts on Saturday; Bayside Kangaroos for the middle, who did admin for the whole weekend, including Greg Tamblyn who ably was in charge of SI for all events. Then Nillumbik Emus for the long. These events certainly showcased what Victoria has to offer MTBO, and I heard a lot of very positive feedback from interstate orienteers.

Full results and splits can be found on Eventor.