Saturday Morning Run - 26th Jan - Great Hameldon Hill

50mph winds made for hard running. We did a 12 mile (19.3km) loop taking in Most of Cribden, Great Hameldon (409m - SD 794 289) and Hameldon Hill (399m - SD 810 287).

Winds around the side of Cribden were so strong, huge effort was required to put one foot infront of the other. Thankfully, we did have the wind on our backs for some of the duration, especially noticeable on the slog up Great Hameldon.

Looking Down The Valley Towards Peel Tower



Great Hameldon Hill Summit, The View South



Great Hameldon Hill Summit, Windswept



On the path to Hameldon Hill we came across some rather icy 'puddles' which turned out to be knee deep icy bogs.

Upon returning to Loveclough, we did come across what would be an excellent orienteering forest, a nice surprise when the legs were beginning to burn. All in all an excellent run, apart from the gales, perfect weather!

Click here to download the route for viewing in Google Earth. You will need to have Google Earth installed on your computer.

News Flash - Finals Here We Come

Pendle Forest Orienteering Club are through to the National Final of the Compass Sport Trophy!

After battling with the mud and rain at Frodsham, PFO came out ahead of local rivals SELOC to ensure a place in the inaugural final. After missing out on qualifying in previous years, this is a leap forward for the club. PFO will compete against the cream of British orienteering clubs at Sutton Park, Birmingham on the October 18th.

Needless to say this is partly due to the outstanding efforts of our Norway Juniors, with Alex Willis and Sophie Horrocks scoring the maximum possible on Blue and Light Green courses respectively. Liam and Ste also contributed to the clubs success.

Mountain Bike Orienteering Part 2

I woulod like to add to Danny's comments about the event last Sunday and say that it was a really good event; different to what we both normally do (being 4 hours long!) but enjoyable for the novelty if nothing else. I have added a picture my Dad took as we raced away from the start having already planned our route (we did however promptly make a 180 degree error on reaching the main road- less haste more speed i think!).

British Schools Orienteering Champs Report

SUCCESS mapped out: Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School’s year 12 orienteering team (front left) with other runners, who competed in the British Schools’ National finals at Dorset.

Rossendale Free Press Report Tops in the end 7/12/2007

BACUP and Rawtenstall Grammar School’s year 12 orienteers have been crowned national schools champions.
They beat more than 70 school teams from the UK and Northern Ireland to claim the British Schools title at the army’s tank training ground at Bovington, Dorset.
And BRGS also took third place in the overall team category – based on the best nine finishers from years seven to 13 – for the second successive year.
There was also a silver medal for Emily Lester, who marked her final appearance at the championships by taking second place in the year 13 category
And the new year seven girls team of Eilidh Brailey, Esther Clare and Heather Cudworth completed a fine haul by taking a team bronze medal.
The winning year 12 team comprised Liam Taylor, Alex Willis, Stephen Horrocks and Jack Heyworth with the first three finishers counting.
It was a second taste of national glory for Liam and Alex, who were part of the BRGS year seven team who won their category five years ago.
BRGS teacher Tom Gray was extremely pleased with the school’s performance.
He said: ‘Liam and Alex were in the team that won in year seven and the team has just got better and better through the years. Last year was our first time on the podium in the overall category and we were hoping to go one better but were third again.
‘It was a really good achievement with the spread of results for our team because we had counters who were new children in year seven. We have good orienteers coming through to replace the ones who will be leaving and we are hoping for another good team result next year.’
There were a number of other top 10 performances in almost Arctic conditions over a range of courses suited to each school year group. They were: Liam Taylor (fourth) year 12 boys, Sophie Horrocks (sixth) year 10 girls, Paul Burdekin (seventh) year seven boys, Eilidh Brailey (seventh) year seven girls, Alex Willis (ninth) year 12 boys, Danny Hoyle (ninth) year 13 boys and Alix McDermott (10th) year 11 girls.

With thanks to the Rossendale Free Press for Permission to use the above photo and article.

Awesome Limestone Descents

Nothing like 4 hours hard riding in the Dales to cure the Christmas overeating!

On 30th December 2007, Alex Willis and myself ditched the running shoes, for a day in the saddle in a mountain bike orienteering event.

Organised by Kudu Bikes Triathlon Club, the event was a competition between two disciplines, running and mountain biking. It's aim to see whether the runners, with the advantage of footpaths (offering much shorter root choices), could beat the mountain bikers with the clear advantage of speed. To even the out the event, there were two compulsory checkpoints for the bikers, which the runners could ignore. Also, one particularly speedy bridleway was made out of bounds to bikers.

Starting in the centre of Hawes, we headed out on the roads to get the 2 compulsory controls. Following this was a steep climb on forest tracks featuring several switchbacks. After this very painful climb, we were rewarded with a brilliant downhill taking us over some great limestone steps.

Back into Hawes we set out on our second loop, this was a steep climb onto a huge Roman Road running along the ridge of Whether Fell. The next step of the journey offered some fantastic technical riding over open moorland. The kind of track good enough to find it's way onto a magazine cover.

The last descent into Hawes' neighbouring town Gayle, was very technical with deep ruts and tight corners. It follows that I took flight over the handlebars, thankfully, no serious damage. A quick blast through Gayle took us back into Hawes and to the finish. We finished with 140 points in 14th place.

The winner was the speedier mountain bike, yet surprisingly the runners occupied many of the high placings.