OBRA XC Championships Stage Coach Style!

When Evan asked if I wanted to carpool down to Jacksonville for the OBRA State XC MTB race I was pretty stoked. It was a new race to try out so we packed up my Subaru and drove to Medford where we stayed the night before the race. Trying to get enough sleep, we woke up last minute and showed up to the venue just about 10 minutes before the race started. I didn’t manage to get much of a warm-up in, but felt great as we took off on the steep gravel road which spread all of the racers out by at least 20 seconds. I had studied the course map online and remembered seeing that my race was supposed to be about 20 miles with over 3,000ft of elevation gain so I made sure to save enough energy so the climbing wouldn’t wipe me out. I ended up missing one of the first turns and didn’t realize it until I was over a mile past it and had climbed an extra 500ft. After turning around and getting back to the race course, I rode about four miles of downhill singletrack along a steep hillside and was real shocked when I heard bells and saw the finish line, as my Garmin only showed 12 miles, two of those being off the course! I asked the promoter about the mileage and he explained that he wanted it to be suitable to all ages and levels which is why he chose to the truncate the course. I was a little disappointed since I would have stepped up my pace substantially if I had known this ahead of time. Evan won the Pro category capturing his fourth OBRA XC title, and I finished 2nd in Juniors. I’m not sure yet if I’ll plan to race next year in Jacksonville again or not.

Ian Mastenbrook