I'm curious if anyone else tried orienteering in any form.

Recently I took part in local MTBO competitions, was very impressed, this sport is exciting! You may rush by forest paths, without getting tired as if you just did a usual bike race, because there will be a lot of stops. You may show all your wit when choosing your route and beat the fast riders with your brain. You may search a path or a road, or a checkpoint - searching something in exciting itself.

The competition wasn't numerous (100 people in all categories including orienteering by foot, 25 in bikes/men), which is quite sad, because anyone who can ride 25 km in a bike, can take part in the competition and may be competitive.

What excites me most of all is orienteering, ie choosing a checkpoins sequence and the best way between checkpoints. Last race, I was riding slowly: there were guys who passed me being about 5 km/h quicker on asphault. But I was good at maps and didn't need to stop extra times to look into the map/think where I was, and I lost the way only once, but quickly understood my location and caught up. Results? In that race (just 3rd for me) I was the winner among 22, against quite fast riders.

I strongly recommend other mountain bikers to try this sport. It is interesting independently on your results - actually, if you get lost, your adventures become even more interesting.

i do it all the time , even on my trip to work i often take a scenic route so i can rally up the local hills

I am actually planning on doing a 8mile MTB ride, 5mile Run and 1mile Canoe. It is an orienteering based event too, so all in all it should be good fun. As you say, the stop-start nature of the orienteering gives you that extra ability to run/bike and then recover.

If all goes to plan I will be part of a two man team and be fairly competitive. I am most nervous about all the running. I can bike the 8miles easy peasy and adrenaline should get me through the canoe! However 5miles of running will be more than I've done before in one go. Previously I have just taken part in 5km runs....which I guess is alot better than nothing!