Mas o Menos course profile(Image credit: Nat Ross)
In a high school Spanish class, I learned that mas-o-menos meant 'more or less'. The unique phrase stuck in my head so naturally I was intrigued to find a mountain bike endurance festival race with the name.
After doing my homework, the event ended up as my first mountain bike race of the season. I hooked up with Lee and Kevin of the Bike Barn from Houston, Texas and their hosting skills were the bomb!
More or less was the certainly the theme of the weekend. The amazing venue is located in BFE Texas, right by the Mexican Boarder in South-West Texas. Back in the day, NORBA had an early season race in the Chihuahuan Desert that attracted top pros from Colorado like Dave Weins (Polo/RLX) and Rishi Grewal (Klein). This year was no different as Travis Brown (Trek/FRS) and I ventured down south to get a taste of some early season singletrack. There were races of all sorts including: the Kids Kup, 30, 50 and 100 kilometres. I'll give you the 411 on the 100 kilometre track.
I more or less came over-prepared for winter weather and the climate was amazing, so I had to take scissors to my long sleeve jackets, jerseys, arm warmers and full leg warmers. Don't worry - this was a good problem to have. I pre-rode the entire 50 kilometre lap on Thursday, because I was so excited to be riding singletrack again. I should have saved some of the course for Friday, but the riding was so sweet, I couldn't help it!
More or less? More - I brought my hard tail, but would have rather had my Race Day full suspension there. More once again - I decided, after pre-riding the course with too little air pressure, to add 10 psi to the Bontrager Dry X front and rear tyres.
Race Day - I had a great warm-up as I rode from our lodging to the venue. More or less, the start was a sprint to the singletrack and was super chaotic. The Texas racers charge hard and are in race shape this time of year, so it was game on from the get-go.
