Sport of orienteering challenges bikers to ride smart

Getting lost in the woods can be fun.

So says Ken Bell, organizer of the mountain bike orienteering race series, Spokane Trailquest, whose second event takes place on Sunday at Chattaroy Elementary School.

Likening the sport to a scavenger hunt, Bell says that sometimes, “It’s fun to go out and just explore.”

Orienteering is the sport in which competitors are given a map marked with a couple dozen checkpoints. Using only that map and a compass, they navigate the landscape to try and reach as many checkpoints as possible within a given time.

At checkpoints – often small landmarks such as boulders and marked by white and orange flags – competitors punch their scorecards. The farther from the start a checkpoint is, the more points it’s worth.

The individual or pair with the most points at the end wins.

While foot orienteering is the most common version of the sport, versions exist in a variety of disciplines, including on horseback, in canoes and in this case, on mountain bikes.

Theo Propst, owner of Cycle Sports in Liberty Lake, immediately became a fan of the sport when he participated in the first race of the series, his first orienteering event of any kind, at Riverside State Park in late September.

“I recognized a lot of strategy to it,” he said. “What’s cool is that you don’t have to ride hard or fast, just smart.”

Call it the thinking man or woman’s sport, an aspect many of the sport’s adherents highlight.

While other sports and competitions emphasize athleticism on a set course, explains Bell, orienteering, by contrast, is primarily about organization, navigation and planning. As there’s no set route, every participant and team find the checkpoints in a different order, making the course unique for each one.

And therein lies the challenge at times, too.

Bell, who first encountered the sport while teaching in Yorkshire, England, recalled one of his first races, in which he tried to follow the path of two more experienced racers. Quickly, however, they cruised over the mountainous countryside, and Bell found himself in the middle of the countryside with scant idea of his precise location.

When Propst found himself in a similar situation during the race a month ago, he was grateful to have his teammate with him. When he got stuck going the wrong way and thinking, “If I just keep going, I’ll find (the checkpoint),” he said she got him to stop, look at the map, and reorient themselves in the right direction.

But while some may be deterred by such things, Bell, Propst and other fans only see them as challenges that add to the thrill. The best part, said Propst of his race, was when they soon got themselves on the right track and were able to knock off several checkpoints back-to-back.

And what happens should the weather not cooperate on race day? You can bet the show goes on.

Indeed, when an early snowstorm covered the course of a race in Yorkshire, Bell recalled that the snow made it easier to see the tracks of other competitors. Still, the white-haired woman mopping up the mud in the registration room did mutter to him that she thought they were all “nuts,” he added with a smile.

Propst says simply of periodic inclement weather, “It’s an element that adds to the sport.”

Challenges aside, Bell extols the sport for the opportunity it provides to get in touch with local people and communities. In the end, he says, orienteering races are “a good way of getting out and getting some exercise on a Sunday morning.”

Originally developed as a military training exercise, orienteering first became a sport in the Scandinavian countries and remains popular in the region and throughout Europe. The biggest annual orienteering event in the world, Sweden’s O-Ringen, typically counts over 15,000 participants who navigate a sprawling territory for 16 hours on foot.

In the U.S., orienteering is still relatively less well-known, but with several hundred events per year and some 300 to 400 competitors expected at November’s national championships, it’s gaining in popularity, says Steve Gregg, the U. S. Orienteering Federation’s mountain bike orienteering coordinator and an officer in the Bay Area Orienteering Club.

Yet Bell, Propst, Gregg and others are committed to seeing those numbers improve and say most people will like it once they try it.

Gregg, for his part, was hooked on orienteering from the start

“The first time I did a race, I thought, what could be more fun than this?” he said. “I thought this was just the greatest thing.”