Greetings OBRA Community,
Although it looks a bit different, bike racing is back! The Shasta Gravel Hugger and Echo Red to Red took place in March. I want to thank the race promoters for instituting solid COVID risk mitigation plans and for the racers that complied with them. Congratulations to all of the OBRA members who found themselves on the virtual podiums and to the members that may have done their first race. I also want to congratulate our friends to the north for pulling off the CX test event in Port Angeles. I understand that this is an exciting new venue with aspirations for running UCI events.
As you can see on the OBRA race calendar that there are quite a few events scheduled though it is far from the numbers in past years. Many of the venues are still hesitant to host events and some jurisdictions are still not permitting events. We will keep you abreast of new events being scheduled as things start to open up more. A few events that I added to the calendar this week are time trials at Hagg Lake (Banana Belt Course) on May 9-10, a criterium series in Bend beginning on June 23, and, wait for it… Zaldercross on October 3 which will be a part of the early season CX series.
Our membership numbers continue to grow as well as our OBRA team memberships. We are tracking all of the single event memberships this year and are offering discounted annual memberships to these people. After two races we are already seeing this payoff. Thank you to those people that took advantage of the discount and welcome to OBRA! For the OBRA teams, remember that the membership must be renewed for the team name to show up in results and for the team to qualify for the team BAR competition.
I will be at the Mudslinger XC this Saturday. I look forward to seeing you there.
— Chuck