Orienteering is known to enhance brain health and longevity. Rob Garden tested the new knee by pushing hard on the pedals during the Masters MTBO. Meanwhile, Marquita consistently earned the second spot at the World Masters MTBO Championships and is very motivated to return to claim a top position next year.

Rob and Marquita rode their bikes through Slovenia and Italy to prepare for MTBOringen and the Masters MTBO in Denmark. They were impressed with the organisation and the accuracy of the maps.

MTBOringen 

2024 was the 10 year anniversary for MTBO at O-Ringen in Oskarshamn this year. The first time that MTBO was on the Oringen program was in Halland in 2012 as a three-day competition. This area had a lot of technical riding on rocks with lots of rooty gnarly tracks as near to the baltic ocean coast. It was a great area to train in the lead-up to masters with many track networks used for regular mountain biking and so the trails have been maintained by the local MTB clubs. There was approximately 400 cyclists in each stage, and over the 5-days MTBO classes the competition compiles the total time of the four first stages and  the fifth stage there is a chase start where the first over the finish line is the total winner. 

Monday 22 July Long MTBO E1 Map: Odensjö Area: Blomstermåla (south of Oskarshamn)
Coastal area, which was generally fairly flat but there are some large hills with open rock. Some of the tracks are purpose-built for MTB with many berms and drops which were signed and connected by many gravel roads. 

Marquita was happy with her ride, despite not being sure she had all the best route choices.

Results for those in classes: 

H12 3rd Nixon Drew +2:39
H14 2nd Sherlock Drew +0:17
D45 2nd Marquita Gelderman +2:50
D45 4th Rachel Drew +6:19
H50 4th Liam Drew +6:55  
H65 5th Rob Garden +2:11

Tuesday 23 July Middle MTBO  E2 Area: Odensjö
The same terrain as yesterday and it was all about route choice with tricky bits at the end.

Results:
H12 3rd Nixon Drew +3:54
H14 2nd Sherlock Drew +1:40
D45 1st  Rachel Drew 
D45 4th Marquita Gelderman +6:26
H50 3rd Liam Drew +8:39  
H65 5th Rob Garden +5:16

Thursday 25th July  Middle MTBO E3  Area: Tenhult
The Sprint began in an area with tarmac roads and cycleways, but also smaller and technical paths in the forest. The area was hilly in places, the finish passed through a relatively hilly outdoor recreation area, where there are paths of varying size and technical difficulty, but the actual finish punch was in the forest, close to the arena.  Not super tricky but good fun.
Results: .
H12 3rd Nixon Drew +11:24
H14 2nd Sherlock Drew +1:32
D45 2nd Marquita Gelderman +0:16
D45 8th  Rachel Drew +4:09
H50 6th Liam Drew +4:23  
H65 5th Rob Garden +3:59

Friday 26th July Long distance MTBO E4  Area: Månsarp

This was a MTB area with a network of trails that are graded according to technical difficulty. An undulating area with many paths, which in places offer technical cycling but also some gravel and tarmac roads.

Marquita says: “The D45 course was actually invalidated as they had taped off a track with out-of-bounds tape near number 9.”
Results:
H12 3rd Nixon Drew +6:03
H14 1st Sherlock Drew
D45 2nd Rachel Drew & 4th  Marquita Gelderman (before  the course was invalidated )
H50 5th Liam Drew +5:18  
H65 7th Rob Garden +9:58

Saturday 27th July Long distance  MTBO E5  Area: Månsarp Map: Oskarshamnsetappen

A long race with big route choices in similar terrain as yesterday, but some classes cycled through a residential area, and many passed a railway that runs through the area on crossing points that were marked on the map. The area to the south of the railway was undulating, with a network of gravel roads open to traffic and technical trails between them, along with some newly built paths and bridges.
Rob says “the physical size of the maps was huge – you definitely needed an A3 mapboard and there were 3 map changes with maps at different scales. There was a big route choice which was challenging”.

Results: 

H12 2nd Nixon Drew +4:43
H14 2nd Sherlock Drew +2:46
D45 1st  Rachel Drew
D45 4th  Marquita Gelderman +11:50
H50 3rd Liam Drew +11:14  
H65 7th Rob Garden +20:05

O-ringen overall results:
H14 2nd overall for Sherlock
D45 2nd overall for Rachel
D45 4th overall for Marquita
H50  2nd overall Liam
H75 5th overall Rob 

Full Oringen MTBO results here:

WMMTBO24 Viborg, Denmark
425 participants from 27 nations competed in this WMMTBO – the highest number of participants since the Masters World Championship began in 2010 in Poland. We had seven NZ riders competing : Rachel Drew,  Magnus Bengtsson, Liam Drew, Marquita Gelderman, John Robertson, Nick Collins and Rob Garden .

Wednesday 7th August MTBO  Mass start Map: Ebeltoft Plantage (M75 maps below)
The WMMMTBO website promised the day would have  “forest with a dense network of tracks and small hills..[with] .tracks that will twist your brain around during the whole race.”  This  area had been raced on before in 2019 for Junior World O Champs . The map had a detail of of interesting MTB track area.
Both Rob and Marquita said it was an extremely challenging location and map with a sprint up the grassy uphill to the finish chute. Results:
W45 6th Rachel Drew
M45 24th Magnus Bengtsson
M50 15th Liam Drew
W55 2nd Marquita 1:52 behind Helena Svensson, 28 mins behind her was the 3rd placer
M55 33rd John Robertson – in a large field for this class
M75 2nd Rob Garden +0:35  helped by a mispunch by a Danish rider. Very tricky orienteering.

Thursday 8th August MTBO Middle Map: Bjerringbro Egekrat
A dense network of trails, steep hills with numerous mountain bike tracks, and some of  the race was in urban areas. Rachel Drew says of Rob’s result: “Awesome riding in hugely challenging conditions. So many tracks out there were super confusing! Marquita just a few seconds off the win”. Rachel went on to say she punctured, naturally at the far end of the map, with an hour’s walk back to the event centre. 

Results:
W45 Rachel Drew – timed out 
M45 26th Magnus Bengtsson +33:36
M50 9th Liam Drew +06:39
W55 2nd Marquita unfortunately went up  an unmarked track from 13-14. +00:19
M55 43rd John Robertson +25:26
M75 1st Rob Garden – winning by 3 minutes and much easier than mass start yesterday

Friday 9th August MTBO Sprint Map: Undallslund
Super wet riding on mountain bike tracks and what would have been fast tracks but it turned into horrible weather, pouring rain, with lots of  mud, and was very slippery.It had a common start loop with a one way direction .
Results: 

W45 11th Rachel Drew +11:25
M50 11th Liam Drew +04:28
M55 45th John Robertson +15:14
W55 2nd  Marquita Gelderman +0:08
M75 2nd Rob Garden +0:35

Saturday 10th August MTBO Long race Map: Klosterheden Plantage
Described as a “generally flat” area  with small ravines. Rob reported his ride as “srcappy” but still hogged the first podium place. 

Results:
W45 5th Rachel Drew +08:59
M45 20th Magnus Bengtsson +54:41
M50 13th Liam Drew +28:56
M55 25th John Robertson +17:22
W55  2nd Marquita. A couple of mistakes, one a 3 min one (partly due to a map fault) +02:18
M70 12th Nick Collins +28:26
M75 1st Rob Garden

Full results here:

Top image: Rob Garden & Marquita Gelderman WMMTBO in a very wet sprint. Above: Rachel Drew on the podium at the Oringen MTBO and her son Nixon competing