OHV Mountain Bike Orienteering Series Winter 2010

This year I did two of the four MTBO events in the OHV MTBO series, the first and the last. Mountain Bike Orienteering is a great cross of the two sports, orienteering and mountain biking. Riders are given maps and have to find certain controls, by selecting their route well. It is riding with a purpose. In a normal MTBO event you have about 10 control points marked on a map. You have to visit them in order, using the track info to find the best route. Competitors start at intervals, and the fastest to do the course is the winner. Control points are easy to find, they are all on or beside tracks, it's all about finding the best route. The map shows how good the riding is on all the trails, and how steep the country is. Courses are usually designed to be won in about an hour.

The first one (13 June) was held at Makara Peak on a rather gloomy and miserable day, so it wasn’t a surprise that not too many people turned up. The course that I did was quite short and simple, a good choice for a day like that. Although everyone there got muddy and cold, fun was had by all and it was a very well run event.

The second one that I did (11 September), and the last in the series was held at Wainui, a particularly good place to have it, as round two of the PNP series was to be held there the week after so it was good to ride around the area and get a feel for the tracks. This time the sun was shining brightly and lots of people had come to give it a go. I found the course really good, although I did get slightly off course whilst finding the penultimate control, just as I was thinking I was very lost indeed, I somehow managed to stumble across it. I definitely enjoyed this event and it was nice to have such good weather and so many people.

The sport in Wellington relies heavily on Michael Wood of OHV and his small but committed team who put in a huge amount of time and effort to ensure these events are as enjoyable as possible. I definitely recommend people give MTBO a try, it’s awesome fun.

Series winners 2010:
(http://www.mapsport.co.nz/hvoc/mtbopoints10.html)
Junior Men: Jonathan Barnes
Junior Women: Hannah Barnes
Open Men: Simon Kennett
Open Women: Rachel Ockelford
Vet Men:Chris Sherwood
Vet Women: Jo Holden
Super Vet Men: Graeme Silcock

Details of the whole series at -
http://www.mapsport.co.nz/hvoc/mtboresult10.html

Where can you try it?
The next event in Wellington is a pre-Christmas combined MTB-foot rogaine on 12 December (http://www.maptalk.co.nz/events/event.cfm?e=2884). In late January will be the 4/8 hour Ak-attack, somewhere in the Akatarawas (the starting location is only revealed a week or so before the event).