NORBA Drops Cougar Mountain From 2007 Schedule

Hmmm . . . a curious change for the NORBA Nationals series:

We have added the Firestone Santa Ynez Valley Mountain Bike Classic Santa Barbara, CA for cross country, short track and Super D and the Chile Challenge Angel Fire Resort, NM for downhill and 4X series points. These two venues replace the Infineon Cougar Mountain Classic.

Now don't go jumping to conclusions that Infineon Cougar Mountain Classic is cancelled -- in fact, they just put up a new website. This just means that it isn't a NORBA event this year. Which is probably a good thing :> The entire series schedule can be found in a PDF at their site. For the impatient, the 2007 NORBA series now consists of:

• 03/30/07: NOVA National presented by Bear Naked Cannondale
• 04/28/07: Firestone Santa Ynez Valley Mountain Bike Classic XC/STXC presented by TREK-VW
• 05/04/07: Fontana National presented by KONA Bicycles
• 05/26/07: The Chile Challenge Angel Fire Resort Angel Fire, New Mexico
• 06/15/07: Deer Valley Resort National presented by Subaru-Gary Fisher
• 07/27/07: Showdown at Sugar National presented by Maxxis Tires
• 08/10/07: Snowmass National presented by LUNA

This change continues two trends for NORBA: abandonment of the the NorCal scene and the divorce from USA Cycling. I'll update the calendar again (sigh).