NORBA Comes To Town
Last Year For Mammoth?

August 24, 2005

    Last year’s USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships were such a hit around here that NORBA, the National Off Road Bike Association, and Mammoth Mountain are going to do it again.
    This year, however, the venue is different and it may—possibly, might, perhaps—be the last one for Mammoth for a while.
    The new venue for the Sept. 15-18 event is Canyon Lodge.   
    The reason for the venue change: Spectators will be able to use the gondola between the Village and Canyon Lodge, which ought to alleviate some of the traffic gridlock that occurred last season—the only blemish on an otherwise groovy event.
     However, word has it that NORBA wants to change the event from an end-of-season championship to a midseason spectacle. The reason is that NORBA can then send the U.S. champions to the World Championships—a nice enough notion.
    Whether Mammoth Mountain can accommodate the date change is up in the air.