Discussion: Ideas for a MTB-O venue, New England region

I'd like to solicit ideas for a venue for a mountain bike-O in New England. I've only ridden a mountain bike a couple of times, and don't even own one (yet), though I hope to remedy that soon. I did one of the MTB-O's that Jeff Saeger put on in the Blue Hills, and I know there are some of you out there who have done MTB-O's before.

On the other side of the coin, I know of a couple of venues in central Mass that attract MTB'ers (Oxford: Hodges Village; MIllbury?: "Vietnam"), but I don't know how easy or hard it would be to make a map suitable for a MTB-O out of a USGS topo plus some trail annotations.

I would like to poll people with experience, knowledge, or opinions to describe what you'd like in a MTB-O. After reviewing some of the online maps of the Fells, I believe the permitted trail network is insufficient for an interesting MTB-O, but there might be some way to splice MTB pieces with foot-O there.

The area that feet mentioned in the other thread, located in Ipswich, is really far away from central Mass, but perhaps not so unreasonable if it's already an attractive venue for an existing group of MTB folks.

I used to ride a lot in Callahan State Park in Framingham. No O map exists that I'm aware of, but the trail map is pretty accurate, and with the MassGIS resources out there it might be fairly easy to come up with a hefty base map.

There's also Great Brook Farm State Park in Carlisle, which of course has an O map, though the riding isn't very technical, from what I recall. Maybe a good place to start?

Cutler Park in Needham/Newton has some interesting riding, but might be the toughest of the three to get an appropriate map made. I always thought it would be fun (but not necessarily challenging) to orienteer there, with the swampiness and the plank bridges.

Added note: I've never done a MTB-O, and these parks seems kind of small for what I would assume one would need, but it's what came to mind.

I haven't been in an MTB-O, but what's wrong with some of the conventional orienteering places, like Norwottuck? Is access a problem?

We've been talking about a MTB-O event this year too, and one thing we want to be careful about is not introducing mountain bikes into an area where they are not well-accepted. There are lots of trail multi-use issues in our part of Ontario (and probably everywhere else in the world), and we wouldn't want to harm relationships with landowners and other trail users, since we want to continue foot orienteering on those maps. We do have a couple of O maps in areas that are already extensively used by mountain bikers, and one of them has been drawn to IOF MTB map standards, so we'll stick to those places for now.

huntington state park in Bethel is one of the biggest and most popular in this area. there is also Trout brook park in weston and for sprints the new Cranbury park in norwalk.

Joe neglected to plug the WCOC DuO - a three race series of Mt Bike O / Foot-O - 4 hour length.

And he should know - he's the RD.

Regarding the DuO, is the race divided into two halves, or are their choices to be made about whether to bike or run? Or, is one of the pair running while the other is biking? The last variation would be a race I could finally do with my wife!

I suggest Fort Rock in Exeter NH for a location. I made the O map for Boulder Dash in 1996 and it is a little out-of-date, but I have been updating the trail system for recreation maps for the Town of Exeter and the updates are in OCAD. These maps are used by mountain bikers, who now consider Fort Rock one of the best bike sites in New England. Google on "bike NH 'Fort Rock'" for various sites that have reviews of trail biking there. My town recreation map is at http://www.bustedspoke.com/trailDirections.php?tk=... and elsewhere (though maybe not the latest version). The most recent version says "updated 2002".
As I have moved north and Deb Humiston now lives in Exeter, she is taking over revisions of the map.
I've always wanted to see mountain bike O there.
NEMBA uses Fort Rock for many events. New bike trails come and go frequently.
I'm sure Seacoast NEMBA would be interested in an O event at Fort Rock.

I'm not sure how much of it you have in your area, but Ski-O maps translate pretty directly to MTBO maps and the suitability for course setting is similar.

DuO teams stay together and choose to bike or run or both at any time during the 4 hours. I like the split team idea though.

Northfield Mountain in Northfield, MA would be an excellent place for a MTBO event. There's already a good orienteering map of the area and a beautiful network of trails of different widths. Several adventure races and mountain bike races have been held there in the past so getting a MTBO event permitted at Northfield should be a lot easier than getting a state park permit.

See www.nu.com/northfield/ for more info.

I wonder if this establishment of MTB-O events could lead to the eventual formation of a official or semi-official US team? That is to say, could there be a qualifier of some sort in the future? As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I had thought about going to the MTB-O world champs this year. But it seems to me that is a priviledge you should earn.
I wouldn't want to be another Jamaican bobsled team. Actually, as I remember they did alright, even beat the US team I think. Bad example.