Midwest MTB Weekend Racing Recap

by Jay Richards
June 7, 2005

Mountain bike racing returned to the Midwest  this past weekend with the most noticeable racing taking place in Wisconsin Rapids with race #3, the Rome Around. Racers reported a great event with many positive comments on the new course sections. Minnesota riders went home with the wins in the Elite class with Kyia Malenkovich taking her second win of the season and Jeff Hall adding yet another win to his resume. Mr. and Mrs. Eppen are getting some nice insurance finishes with Brian recording his third, second place finish of the season which should put him in the series lead. Junior rider, Cole House, turned in a strong performance at the third spot. Cole came on strong the end of the season last year and might arguably be one of the top JR riders in the country but has been holding off on the National races for now.
  WORS Rome Around Results

Crossing the Border

In the beginning of the week, there was a crack in the window for some racing action on Sunday. I gave thought to heading to WI, but having raced at the Rome Around last year and the travel time involved, I decided to check out the race in Manitoba, Canada which was race #3 in the Manitoba series. I figured the drive time to be 3.5 hours which ranks as one of the closer races of the year I will attend. Crazy, who would think one would have to travel to a different country for that.  

After touching base with the race director on license requirements, I decided I would go. The original plan was to go up Saturday afternoon evening but having run out of time on Saturday I decided I would just wake up early Sunday and knock out the drive in the morning. Jonell was bringing the three youngest to my sister's for the week so Jake went with me for support and took some pictures. Canada is a great country as I have found the people to be most friendly, making a trip with my Dad every fall to hunt the elusive snow goose in Saskatchwen and also have raced at Ski Birch in Rosiele in a Canada Cup race. And, as soon as you cross the border, you feel like, well, you are in a different county as the signs are both in French and English among other things.

The drive up went without incident. I decided to cross the border at Pinecreek as I had not crossed into Canada on Hiway 89 before. We made good time driving up with virtually no traffic and arrived at the border around 8:45am, 15 minutes before it opened. I went into the US customs to shoot the breeze with the customs agent. The agent informed me that at this crossing, it was one of only two airports in the world that has half the airstrip in one country and the other half in the other country. (The other two countries by the way are Norway and Sweden) Anyways, we drove from the bush to the forests of Sandilands, wondering where and the heck would there be a mountain bike race as it was solid woods with only evidence of some logging trails and quad trails and completely flat terrain. We drove off the hiway and made our way on a gravel road for 10 miles before coming to the race site that was really in the middle of nowhere. I definitely was not at Buck Hill.  At first I wondered about the course as it looked to be mainly logging and quad roads for the course. It had rained the whole night, the whole way up and the whole day on Sunday so I wasn't too excited to do a warm up on the course, getting my bike all junked up. I did my pre-ride on Saturday on the Laddies Loppet course at Maplelag in the rain, checking out some tires and tire pressure and felt relaxed and comfortable on the slippery roots and rocks.

Before the start, I ran into some familiar faces including Lyndsay Gould who has been involved with Nordic skiing and biking for almost decades. We also ran into some serious mosquitoes that were about twice the size of the ones here in Minnesota. The rain was showing no signs of stopping so it was very wet. Thankfully the temps were right around 60 keeping the chill factor to a minimum.

Having a UCI International license, I was registered for the Elite class meaning four laps but asked about doing the same distance as Expert (three laps) as there were just a couple of other Elites and thought we might as well all run together. Canada runs a tight ship with licenses, appropriate distances so it meant four laps, which was fine. We all started together so I was going to look at it as a three lap race with a bonus lap for fun!!! Since I did a very short warm up, I thought I would ride a conservative feeler first lap, then slowly turn things up. At the start three riders broke off the front and I settled into the fourth spots going into the bush. Right off the bat we hit some super fun, technical singletrack that was giving one of the riders some trouble and I didn't want to risk crashing so I made my way to the front halfway through the first lap and picked up the pace. One other rider joined me and we worked together the rest of the first lap taking turns off the front. And the end of the first lap, I gapped the rider that was with me but at the start of the second lap, a  different Expert rider bridged up to me and yelled out "you're not from around here" Nope, I said,  

"Welcome to Manitoba" he said. I thought that was very cool. I can think of some WORS races where some things have been yelled at me that I wouldn't want to write about. Anyways, the first lap was right around 29 minutes so I made a quick goal to try and keep the rest of the laps under 30 minutes. For the second lap, this other rider who I think was named Dale, was kind enough to give me a boost/push up a hill I was trying to ride which was again very cool. With the rain continuing to fall,  I got a little chilled so decided to make a little attack to "warm" up again.

At the end of the second lap, I built a small gap on Dale and decided to just keep riding my own race. With more riders turning up the dirt it was getting a bit more greasy. There were some fresh cut sections of singletrack that were not ridable and some of the steep switchbacks (that reminded me of the Maplelag lakeside drops) were getting a bit hairy but still ridable. All in all the course was very fun. There were some sections of singletrack that cut through some lichen/moss that I had not seen before. There were no buildings, no signs, no paved roads, giving the course a feel of complete isolation. Not a lot of climbing but the hills in the course were steep and tight and not ridable with the muddy conditions. At the end of the third lap I still was below 30 minutes for the lap but the fourth lap ended up being over 30 minutes as I let off the gas a bit and the course seemed to slow down the with mud and softness.

After the race I quickly cleaned up as Jake started killing the mosquitoes that had snuck into the van. A quick burger off the grill at the registration tent and we were on our way home. No troubles at the border, just some mud and mosquitoes to declare and we were across in minutes. I have to say racing at Sandilands is the most fun I have had at a race in a long time. A super fun course and friendly people. I talked to some of the riders who told me about the other races in the series and they all sound interesting. Hopefully it will work out to hit one of them later in the season.
  XC Manitoba Cup #3 Results

Looking Ahead 

Looking to next weekend, the MNSCS cranks back up with race #2 in the series at Afton and also the first race in the North Dakota series begins at  Bismarck on Saturday at Sleepy Hollow mountain bike trail.