okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
Sunday, August 24, 2008 Why so little MTB orienteering?Neither the US nor Canada have any entries at the mountain bike WOC and JWOC. No surprise. As best I can tell there is very little mountain bike orienteering in North America. I'm guessing that most of the mountain bike orienteering that takes place in North America happens as part of an adventure race.Back to okansas.blogspot.com. posted by Michael | 3:32 PM
Comments:
Well Margus Hallik was 12th today and he's been in Ottawa a few years now, that sort of counts doesn't it? He's someone who finds the Ottawa woods quite open compared to Estonia.
Others could tell you more, but for many years COF advised clubs against holding any MTB-O events, for insurance reasons. These policies have now changed.
If MTBO was promoted in Canada now I predict we will have a podium finish within 8 years! Canadian MTB has great depth and the cross over with adventure racing is very large. We have the racers, we have potential sponsors, we have the maps. So what is the rate limiting step? Well IMHO the MTBO events would have to high profile to attract racers because the MTB races (at least in Ontario) are very very professionally organized. So we need to find good pro organizers to partner with. But one only needs a few races to attract racers and then lots of specialized training. In Ontario the top MTB areas are almost all mapped for orienteering.
Mansfield, Ganaraska, Horseshoe Valley, Kelso, Albion Hills, Durham Forest..... MW
Speaking of MTB O. We'll have an option for a duathlon of sorts at the Jerry Tabb Road Trip in Harrisonville, MO Sept. 20th. We'll have a normal score-O course with an optional bike-O for those that would like to give it a try.
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