23/5/03 - Trailquest pair are first again

The six events making up the National League are held at venues throughout the UK. The event centre this time was Blanchland in Northumberland, a small outpost in the moorlands of the North Pennines.

The 30 checkpoints were spread over the surrounding hilltops, making choice of route extremely difficult, with long, tiring off-road climbs between points and little tarmac road that could be used. Luckily the dry weather had left the moor's peaty tracks bone dry and rideable, if extremely rough.

Choosing to start going north, the team were faced with the first of several 500-feet climbs onto the moors. A group of points in Slaley Forest provided easy pickings for the first hour before having to descend to the valley and take on another climb to cross the moors completely and drop into Allendale.

"The next four hours were pretty much the same," said Andrew.

"Grab a few points close to each other, then back up another huge climb and over into the next valley."

The highest score on the day was only 360 points out of a possible maximum of 525, and that was achieved by the UK's top individual Trailquest rider, Steve Heading.

Despite the hard going, the Malvern pair had an excellent day finishing on 320 points, 70 points clear of their nearest 'mixed' rivals.

"I didn't count the hills at the time," said Andrew, "but looking at the map afterwards, we climbed about four and a half thousand feet in five hours and covered about 50 miles. It was certainly one of the toughest events we've been in."

With two of the six-event series completed, the next event for the pair will be at Pickering in July.

Belinda Tarling (Cheltenham & County CC) raced in the second round of the British National Points Series at Catton Hall last Sunday and took first place in the Master Women event in 1.50.17, more than six minutes ahead of second-placed Renell Bartlett (Kona/Clarkes Cables).