My Story

I had a really great weekend! Bikes, Beer and Blokes what more could you ask for? Did someone say "Navigation and Orienteering"?

The event:It was simple - copy down the 17 or so checkpoints onto your map (or memorise them) and clock in at each one twice, once on the way there and once on the way back. Basically setoff from Freshwater, navigate to all 17 checkpoints and turn around at the airport in Shanklin and go back the same way. Mileage of 50-60 seemed doable.

This was most of our first crack at an orientation event and in hindsight we should have chosen somewhere more of us had had actually been to before. With an average age of 42 we should have known better.

The six of us arrived in two groups. I came late with Andrew and the beer. The others had made camp and gone to find the start point for tomorrows ride. I pitched my tent in the "hole" left in the little tent circle and we got comfortable with the beers. Everything was going according to plan.

Especially Paul's little joke plastic dog poo which appeared in my tent and everyone else's too at some stage, it kept him amused for the best part of Saturday afternoon, that can't be bad, eh?

I had a good nights sleep unlike some people and was largely oblivious to the nightly noises of bottles filling and sawing logs.

The ground was cool and damp from condensation and I religiously kept my trainers on till the last moment to keep my bike shoes dry from the wet grass. However we arrived at the start to find a field of long wet grass and within minutes my shoes were soaking. The best laid plans of mice and men eh?

We formed two random teams out of the 6 of us, to make it interesting, the main aim was to split up the brothers, James and Andrew. After everyone missed the first checkpoint and had to go back down the first long hill we knew we were in for it. Our Team managed to get a small lead on Paul, Andrew and Dave at this point. However after a silly error with the map (mine) around checkpoint 12 (or was it 13) they caught us and passed us. That was virtually the last we saw of them. They had superior gatemanship, a no nonsense approach and a certain GPS unit, whilst James, Matt and I stopped all too often to consult maps, argued the toss about routes, check points and where exactly left and right were located. Mechanically we had two punctures on the way out James first (at checkpoint 10) and Matt (between 1 and 2). The effect of the aforementioned meant that we succeeded in breaking up our rhythm and never really achieved getting into the zone for any length of time.

I think we all underestimated the IOW Hills and their slowing effect.

Thank goodness we had good weather.

Andrew, Paul and Dave passed us on their return leg at checkpoint 2. It was almost 2pm by now and I was flagging due to dumping my water earlier as it tasted rank and not having had lunch yet. James was showing the effects too being untried of the the distance and Matt was towing us along with his determination.

Due to our late arrival at Shanklin we decided against returning along the route we came. We returned our electronic tags and had our lunch. James decided he would take the bus back and Matt and I decided on the longer road route back as we would not have made it back to Freshwater in day light. We took to the road back but joined the trail for the final few miles as we realised we had a bit of energy left for a couple of hills. All in all we saw more of the island than planned.

We got back just to a rapturous welcome from James (who was really bored by this time) and were joined a few minutes later by Paul, Dave and Andrew who had done it all the hard way.  Well done lads.

I congratulated myself (all too soon it appeared) on having no mechanical issues all day and promptly discovered I had a puncture when it came to head back to the campsite. I wasn't going to be caught like that and furiously pumped it up and lead the charge back to the campsite.

Sadly a rather pathetic shower awaited us at the campsite but the beers were still cold.

Then it was time to decamp to the pub for dinner and a lengthy post mortem (yawn) and a pub quiz as it turned out. A group effort saw the Tired Boy Team come in a not too shabby third place.

Back to the camp for one more beer and a lot of bodily noises.

Well done everyone!

I have uploaded various othe rpictures to the gallery as well as these 2 below.