Alfred Thorpe wrote:
“Well done!! What a well-organized and fun event! Loved it. Really hope we don’t have to wait another year for something similar in the WC.”
Delena Malane wrote:
“We enjoyed the NavChallenge extremely! Please make sure that it is held again because we would love to participate again!”
Quintin Smith from Bikes ‘n Wines wrote:
“Guys, just a quick thanks and congrats on an awesome job you did on Sat. I’ve done my fair share of events, and was very impressed with the entire operation and setup. Very professional and well put on!Hopefully you decide to put on another race or 2 in the near future, cos I’ll definitely be there!”
Ansa Theron wrote:
“Thanks for a great day on Saturday- it was clear all of you put a lot of effort and hard work into the event. Had lots of fun.Please find attached my personal NavChallenge experience. Feel free to use, or not. Either way -thanks for the experience and looking forward to the next one!”
Martine Levy wrote:
“You guys are rock stars! That was brilliant! So very well done. You both put heart and soul into this event, and it showed!”
Irene Eleftheriou wrote:
“Thank you for trusting us and involving us in such a special event. David and I are both just thankful that we got to be a part of it. It was such a success and you should really be proud of yourself. So thank YOU!!!
Fran Venter wrote:
“You really need to take this forward, so many people asked for more such well-organized events.”
Wynand Claassens wrote:
“I was seriously impressed with what you managed to do!”
John Dalton wrote:
“I have to congratulate you on a great event. Hanri and I really enjoyed it and hope you organize events in future! I have written a small race report that you are welcome to glance at! Such a refreshing event! http://road2theepic.blogspot.com/2011/02/nav-challenge.html
Laurence Lombard wrote:
}“That was a blast! Extremely well organized and lots of fun. Lots of goodies – I especially liked the free beer and sandwich – nice touch. We ended up going for the faraway ones first (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 5) which I think was a good strategy, but the (my) legs didn’t allow us to do anymore. Also like the fact that only one team managed the whole course in the allotted time, so it makes it a real challenge. Would be interesting to see all the scores and get an idea what routes the other competitors took. Hope the fundraising did well. Give us feedback and updates on the site.Now that you’ve started something you’ll have to organize another one!”
Ilse Langhout wrote:
“Just want to thank you for an awesome event on Saturday. It was my first Navigation event and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.The event was organized masterfully.I truly hope that this can become an annual event that grows from strength to strength.”
Tanya wrote:
“ ’Felt like I was in the middle of nowhere exploring some new trail’ – this quote really sums up what riding the Navchallenge over the weekend was like this for me.The experience of finding and exploring new trails/paths/jumping over fences in the hope of finding the next check point whilst riding with good company was a great way to spend 3 hours on the bike.The event was SO WELL RUN and ORGANISED with the thrill of orienteering thrown in has more than convinced me that I will do the next Navchallenge.There is so much to tell RE this event, but I need to do a little work now … I will post a proper ride report later.Congrats to Inky and the Brain for winning the Mixed category!”
Kevin Flanagan wrote:
“Thanks for a great race on the weekend.”
Nicky West wrote:
“Just wanted to pass on a very positive message…One of the guys that I work with did your Nav Challenge this last weekend, and he and his buddy were blown away by the organization and the event as a whole.He has said that they will be doing any future events that you organize. He mentioned that he has done a lot of the PPA events and other events, and this topped any of them.He says they are both part of online forums for biking and there will be a lot of VERY positive feedback on your event.Well done and really happy to hear it went so well for you.”
Russell Olsen wrote:
“I did the race on the weekend and left my map case behind with the map and pen in it. If you found it, that would be great although I am more interested in the map or the coordinates of the pc`s if you have those available.The race was great – good to see you organized many of those irritating things out of the race that we all dislike at others races like hide and seek etc. Hope there is one again soon.”
Andre Crawford wrote:
“I just want to compliment you guys and your entire team on a great event, Team C-12 truly enjoyed it and we hope that in the future sometime you guys will be planning on doing something similar again. The event was very well organized and everything just seemed to work like clockwork.Thanks again for a great event.”
Brian Kennedy wrote:
“Saturday was my first Navigation/Orienteering type race. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to be doing many more. Thanks for everything.”
Ryan Mes wrote:
“I entered the 3 day quest challenge and very disappointed that it has been cancelled as it was perfect warm up for the Expedition Africa. I think it fell apart due to poor marketing. I think people would rather do day things that involve orienteering (but not marketed to the public as orienteering). For example I did the NavChallenge this weekend which had navigation and you could choose to do the mountain biking course or running. Loads of fun and fully sold out!”
Jerome le Sueur wrote:
“This was our first Navchallenge and it was an absolutely GREAT event with EXCEPTIONAL organization and in aid of a GOOD CAUSE ….. we will MOST DEFINITELY be at the next Navchallenge.I just wish we had found that mysterious small pump house at check point 6 
”
Hannah Shaw wrote:
“Thanks for organizing such an awesome race on Sat – we had great fun – loved the paddling.”
David Rubin wrote:
“Saturday was my first event of this type with the whole navigation thing and it was absolutely amazing it was more like a treasure hunt. Really I have been to a few other events and this one *really* tried to cater to the noobies it was awesomely fun. Your event was very well planned and super organized. The fact that almost every single person got some sort of prize was pretty cool even if some of the things were small it make it feel like everyone had a chance even the people that didn’t have a hope in hell of getting to all 11 MTB check points. The award for the slowest/lowest scoring team was pretty cool and I liked that.So as any amazing as the event was, I am sure there is going to be another one (at least I HOPE) so I thought I would send through some hopefully constructive criticisms for next time.
1) Race starting at 9:30am is just far too late because of the three hour dead line that means most of the teams were still cycling at 12:30am the hottest part of the day. I think what could work rather well is trying to start before 8:30 or even 8am I do think it was entirely possible because of how organized you were. The people will come on the last minute no matter what time the start time is so might as well be early.
2) Although the race briefing was pretty informative if you want to stagger the groups even more (ie starting earlier) you could skip the race briefing and simply print it out on paper and each team simply reads the instructions themselves and you have a Q and A time when people can ask questions or something like that.
3) Last suggestion is mostly because I along with most of the other teams struggled with the navigation part. Some of the markers were quite a bit off the beaten track and even though it wasn’t the intention to hide them if you took a slightly wrong route from the main path you could go up and down looking for the marker it might be nice to have a few arrows once you get to the main paths pointing which smaller one to take? But this might not actually be practical.
Either way regardless of any of my suggestions are possible or even sane I would mostly certainly take part in this race yet again! It was absolutely amazing. Thanks for all the hard work you and your team put into this.”
Comments from the organizers: Thanks for the feedback David. I am glad that you enjoyed our first event. We encourage all competitors to give us feedback, positive or otherwise so that we can fine tune our planning to ensure an even better event in future that can be enjoyed by all levels of competitors We have already discussed your very valid points of constructive criticism as we agree with your sentiments entirely.
- Agreed, especially in summer.
- We do need to shorten race briefing but we feel it is essential to pass on certain information at the briefing session (possibly less information than on Saturday) and allow for a short session. The length of race briefing is directly proportional to the experience of the competitors. As competitors gain experience in this type of race, we should be able to shorten briefing even further.
- This is a tricky one as the event has navigation at its core. However, following from discussions with a number of noobies, we have concluded that we need to cater for the noobies to a greater extent and we have some innovative ideas as to how this is best done. Furthermore, you may be aware that we ran a navigation training course in January in order to prepare competitors for this race. I hope to be able to offer more training courses in the near future.
The biggest challenge that we need to overcome is in fact catering for two different levels of experience, ie the experienced competitors and the noobies. It is pretty difficult to satisfy both. If we make it too easy then the experienced competitors are guaranteed to whine. If we make it too difficult then we end up discouraging the noobies, which is the last thing that we wish to do. Nonetheless, based on your comments, we have devised some innovative ideas to make the next event more fun to both the experienced competitor and the noobies. Thanks again for the great feedback.
Warthogs mailing list:
“Dear Organizers of the Nav Challenge
This is an open letter on the WH list as you had advertised your first race on this list and I thought it apt that I in turn post here again.
What are you doing? Where have you been? Why have you not organised another event?
Sure I know you guys did the first one in the name of charity and only got a T-Shirt for your effort, but this is no excuse not to organise another EXTREMELY well put together and administrated event with a HUGE FUN element.
Please, I call out to you to get creative, find some charity to assist again and get us another Nav Challenge.
So come on, pull up your socks, disregard your personal lives and work commitments in order to bring us another event
Kind Regards Hairy”
Comments from the organizers: Boys. Whilst it may be true that I am snowed under with my new job myself and Kerry are certainly planning another event. Kerry is working full time on events. She is currently looking for sponsors for the next event the date of which will be announced shortly. Heads up, it’s early august and there is another one planned for later in the year. Can’t wait.
