Sunday 30 May. Two Miles up the A6 North of Kendal is the small Hamlet of Selside, this was the Event location of the Cross Cumbria Trailquest event. It is pretty rare these days to find a 5 hours Mountain Bike Trailquest and had not realised until getting to the village hall that I was to be out longer than the usual 3 hours. Paul had already arrived and registered when I got there, we were going our own separate ways for this one with Paul in the Male Solo class and me (Mick) representing Team Haglofs in the Male Vet category. I had not ridden in this part of the Lake District which meant every track would be a New Adventure. The weather was ideal with the previous days rain clearing to give dry conditions. I glimpsed at the map at the give out and did my usual strategy of heading off towards a checkpoint (CP) whilst still working out a route plan for the event. I new the North of the map was the hilliest and headed off there first to do the big climbs of the day with fresh legs. The first time I came across Paul was when he was heading back down a hill I was heading up, I had gone too far up the hill but Paul had gone further and was back tracking.
The reason was that the CP was pretty well hidden and there was no tape to help out. This was to become a theme of the race, you definitely needed the CP descriptions to hand as they were all well hidden and became a bit of hide and seek game finding them. I headed up to Barrowdale (which is a fantastic spot and I will be going back to check it out more in the near future). Paul was on a mission and was powering up the hill while I was taking a more relaxed approach taking a few photos to use on the blog! Whilst doing so another competitor caught me up and I thought time to pull my finger out, there were a fare few gates which me and the rival took turns to open and close, and before long the advantage of the teamworks I had caught Paul back up. We summited the hill above Barrowdale and Paul veered off to the right on an indistinct path whilst I favoured continuing on a similar indistinct path. I had got it right and managed to open up a few minuets lead over Paul.
 

The race was to continue with a similar theme, we kept toeing and throwing right down to the South of the map, Paul had pulled away from me and went to collect a couple of CPs I decided to skip, time was knocking on, I planned a route back to event centre that maximised the points on the return route. Paul took the gamble to pick up more points, due to the CP's being well hidden this took longer than anticipated, and he then had to sprint back in a more direct route. I made good time on the return and finished 10 mins early and I was left wondering if I should have gone for another CP. The food and hospitality was excellent, I got chance to catch up with Mike Toyn and we compared routes. Mike won overall (1st overall and 1st Male vet class) and I came in second in the male vets. A good event that challenged all riders in a great location.