NAVIGATOR P.RISBOROUGH RACE REPORT

What fantastic weather we’ve had this week, it was a real shame that the forecast looked bad for Sunday, sadly it looked to be coming true but hey we were pre entered and had to race – the weather doesn’t bother us anyhow…

8.30am rolling up into the Princes Risborough Upper School car park to find somewhere to park, register, sort the bikes out and decide on a plan of action to tackle this navigator challenge… and all this had to be done before the start closing of 10 o’clock!

The aim of the navigator racing is simple, whether you’re in a pair, going solo or in a group you have a time limit of 3.5hrs or 2.5hrs. Now dotted all over large areas of the Chilterns there are checkpoints where you have to dock these digital SI cards. Now the aim is to get to as many checkpoints as you can, collect the points (more points the further the checkpoints are from the start) and then get back within the time limit other wise you loose 25  points per minute your late!

Tactics and fitness go hand in hand with these events, as you have to decide to ride futher and visit fewer checkpoints that are worth more to gain points or visit a larger quantity of lower scored checkpoints nearer to the start/finish. The choice is yours. We opted for a bit of both of these tactics and visited a variety of scored checkpoints worth from 10 to 40 points.

We had a good start rushing off to our local area around Whiteleaf Hill. Having found the 3 checkpoints here we started working in a clockwise direction through the Bucks Countryside and visited the checkpoints around Horsenden, Bledlow and Chinnor. With 40minutes to run, and still out in the Bledlow area we had to head back to avoid late penalty points. We gained points from 6 visited checkpoints, the 7^th we visited was a dummy and the 8^th checkpoint was nowhere to be found… hidden slighty too well by trailbreak we think!

Luckily the sun came out pretty much from the start, the tracks dried out in places but many were still very heavy going in clogged mud from the horse riding. With the temperature creeping up to near 18 degrees it was also getting quite clammy and hard work hacking around the woods, but we rolled in with a respectable score and found ourselves heading towards the cold drinks and cakes on offer…

We would like to thank Trailbreak for once again organising a superb event, and for everyone that took part to make it a success. Next year we’ll see you at the whole Navigator Series.

 

Race Reports by S.Camber 2006.