OOC \
The first Bike O and Run O event was many things; an awesome biking section from the riders feedback, a long event, a new experience for most, a bit of a disappointment in terms of entries, but a success for the Club in introducing Bike O to the area.
This event took a lot of volunteers to run. John Ranson was Controller & spent quite a few hours checking the course, putting out controls and making much appreciated course design suggestions. He also spent most of the day at Timm Rd as starter and watching the bikes as the people were doing the run section. Mary Anne Sauve also helped on course design, such as suggesting the matrix section in the middle of the bike, and spent the day as Starter and then collected all the controls in Kanata Lakes. She was the Controller for the run section. Mary Anne had also spent Saturday afternoon putting out controls, after doing a triathlon in the morning. Linda Connell and Andrew Cameron did Registration, and Linda picked up controls at Timm Rd. James Connell picked up all the controls in the March highlands area. Eric Teusch ran the SI for part of the day then Lorna Guttormson took over and also helped with the food. Lorna also set up the on-line registration and posted everything to our site.
All in all it was a major volunteer effort and much appreciated!
Awesome was the word I heard most about the bike O, and also comments on the length. The riding was very technical in some areas and muddy. I had targeted a winning time of 2 ˝ - 3 hours but did not properly communicate that so most had not packed enough food & water. Also the day was much hotter than forecast and there was not enough water on the course.
We had a problem with 1 control placement which I think was from a trail not on the map. People had to adjust their orienteering as they would easily overshoot the controls and back track. Lorna was at CP5 and she watched many people go by on the wrong trail or just go by and not stop.
We shortened the run section. I had targeted a winning time of 1 hour and it probably would have been a good length for a regular B meet but after a long bike section plus the transition and with the heat, shortening it was the right thing to do.
The O-Store.ca provided a control card holder and Mark at Intrepid provided 2 Bike map holders at a deep discount. These map holders for biking are also available at the O-Store. Ian Kemp won the card holder and Kim Reynolds and Ray Vermette won the map holders.
The Kemp team of Emily and Randy had the fastest combined time of 3:19:55. The Chafe team of Stephen Powell and Errol Thompson was fastest in the Youngsters Male on the advanced course with a time of 4:16:42. Venture This (Claude-Anne Godbout-Gauthier and Dave Urichuck) won the Youngsters Coed Intermediate with a time of 3:55:09, and Swamp Hoppers (Anita Pozgay & Adrian Turcanu) won the Masters Coed Advanced with a time of 4:13:43.
The Advanced course was the same as the intermediate with an added section in the March Highlands. The run section was the same for everyone. It was set up with an untimed transition between the bike and run so there would be no racing on streets. I will update this report when I have a chance to show the bike & run splits but if you look at the SI report the Bike section ended at Control #226 and the run started at #228.
Lots of interest from competitors for another Bike O. A combined Bike & Run was a lot of work for quite a few volunteers so we’ll have to have a hard look before the next one.
Rorry.