2006-07 Winter series victor, Dave Nichols, claimed his second overall league win after he climbed to first place in the Midlands Autumn Series in the final round at Congerstone.

Autumn Series Victor Dave Nichols

The event was won by Ian Cartwright with another commanding performance, getting round 22 controls, four more than anyone else, for a final score of 440. This was 55 points better than runner up Tim McDowell.

Dave Nichols was ten points further back in third, but with Ian and Tim having only having completed three of four performances they are allowed to count, this was enough to give Dave the overall title.

Consistent performer, John Rawden's fifth place was enough to secure him second overall, with third overall being taken by Scott Witheford after seventh at Congerstone.

Carl Baldwin retained the John Wilkinson Memorial trophy for the highest aggregate league points in the calendar year, following sixth at Congerstone with his wife Di. His nearest rival Kirk Howe could only manage fifteenth on the day.

Iwona Szmyd was once again best solo female, gaining eight place at Congerstone - her only appearance in the Autumn series.

Many thanks to organiser Mark Green of Bikeadventuresuk for putting on another well planned event, the third he has organised for us this year!

Event Results    League Table

As we were unable to find enough organisers to give us an extra event or two and take the Autumn series into mid-December, our next event is the CATS Cracker 7 on Sunday 28th December.

The CATS Cracker is an annual 3 hour trailquest designed to help us burn off those excess Christmas calories and will be based at Foxton, which is just outside Market Harborough in Leicestershire. The event always attracts large numbers of riders and this somewhat hillier part of the county should provide an interesting challenge.

As we have grown it has become increasingly difficult to try and calculate final league scores in an accurate and timely manner at the last event in a series. To overcome this we have decided to award the prizes won during the year immediately after the CATS Cracker event.

So whether you're a prize winner in 2008 or not please do your best to come and support this fun event and please stay for a little while after for our prize giving presentation. Remember MTQ needs your support if we are to continue our success!

Event Details

MTQ recently passed the major milestone of one thousand members, almost exactly two years after we first opened our doors for business. This makes us now one of the very largest cycling organisations in the UK and to think this has been achieved in such a short time is phenomenal!

We should all give a big vote of thanks to the small band of organisers who have worked tirelessly to make MTQ what it is today and we look forward to growing even further in future.

Our success is also due to the constantly engaging challenge our sport provides with it's combination of fitness, route planning and navigation skill all needing to work together for success, plus the fact that every event presents a new set of challenges for the participants.

Like all organisations which rely on volunteers, our success will only continue whilst members come forward and put events on for us, and we are always in need of new events in new areas so that the burden doesn't keep falling on the same people. If you think you could help promote an event please e-mail us at info@MidlandTrailquests.co.uk.

Many of you who change your e-mail address forget to update it in your MTQ details, which means you will not be receiving any of our periodic electronic newsletters.

So next time you login to enter an event, don't forget to check your details and bring them up to date. If our e-newsletters have bounced we will have set your account not to receive any more, so please change this setting back to Yes when your details have been updated.

If your details are correct and you are still not receiving our e-newsletter then it is probably being marked incorrectly as spam. Simply add e-newsletter@MidlandTrailquests.co.uk to the address book or safe senders list in the e-mail application you are using to overcome this.

© Alun Piggott

A Trailquest is an orienteering event, ridden on a Mountain Bike, and is currently the fastest growing branch of cycling, on or off-road, in the UK. Competitors come from all age ranges and both sexes, and it is not always the fittest riders that win as planning and navigation are just as important.

To find out what Trailquesting is all about read our guide.