Midwest MTB Racing Recap

by Jay Richards
May 29, 2007

When the opportunity to do the Manitoba Cup #2 at Sandilands Nordic trails in Sandilands Provincial Park arose, I made every effort to make the trip up north as it was one of my favorite races in 2005. The year that I did the race in 2005, steady light rain fell the whole morning leading up to race day making for muddy and greasy conditions. This year, the conditions could not of been better. Rain the day before that totaled around 2" tacked the course up nicely and compacted the sandy areas. Mother Nature topped things off with clear skies and bright sunshine the day of race climbing to a race time high of 60 degrees after a chilly morning low of 32 degrees.

The course at Sandilands offers a nice mix of tight twisty singletrack through thick wooded forests, fast quad trails with 3' high berms, lung and leg burning climbs and behind the saddle switchback descents. There are no buildings at the race site and one gravel road where riders enter from either direction and must "go through the ditch to race registration" to provide a total deep woods feel. Definitely one of my favorite courses I have raced at in the Midwest, if you will.

With the race being in Canada, the mindset would be to think for a long day of travel but the venue is actually one of the shortest races to attend on our race schedule. With that said, we were able to leave the day of the race as both Jake and I were racing at noon. There was a kids race at 11am and Jack was along to partake in this event. The trip north went without incident with almost no traffic. Near the border Jack yelled out "Dad, I don't see any cars in front of us or behind us, that's kinda weird" Being that we were only 11 miles from the border, I suddenly became concerned that the border was either closed or opening at 10am which would put us at a 20 wait time. Upon reaching the border, we waited 5 minutes at customs before the agent came from the States side to ask the routine questions, look at the passports and we were on our way.

We arrived at the venue and made the turn into the ditch. Nice. We bumped into a few folks I recognized from attendance at Maplelag mountain bike events and also a few winter ski guests including Andy Dwilow, who the last time I saw him, was skiing on a half inch of fluff on top of a ice skating rinklike surface as I was trying to turn some ice (thanks to an inch of rain) into something skiable with one of the Ginzu groomers. Anyways.

After registration it wasn't long until Jack lined up for the youth event. He was scheduled to do two "special" laps that included some bumpy and rooty singletrack and flat quad trails. Jack slipped on the kit and crocs and was ready to roll. After confirming with Jack he understood the directions laid forth by the race director, Jake and I headed down the trail to cheer him on once he was in the woods. After the older kids came by, Jack came tooling along smiling away and being the Happy Jack he is. After completing the race he proclaimed, "the race was fun, it went pretty good, but I almost broke my back".

After Jack's race, Jake and I had about 30 min to warm up so we rode for about 20 min on the gravel road before rolling to the line. Jake was about 3 waves back and as I wished him good luck, I noticed one of the kids polishing off a full on hot dog before the start. Ahh, to be young. When we got ready to take off, I wasn't sure who was racing Expert or Elite and as it turned out, I was the only elite. Either way, my game plan was to ride at the front as long as I could and take it from there. Being it was the first "race" of the year and with five laps of a roughly 9km loop on order, I looked at this more as a training race. I was also racing the new Salsa for the first time and was eager to test it out racing for the first time. The start was flat with double track for only 100 meters so good positioning going into the singletrack was going to be critical.

Off the start, I went hard with two other riders to put myself in the third spot going into the singletrack. The group was a bit more "nervous" than I expected with riders eager to move up into the field. One guy was hollering from the back to keep the pace up and reminded us "there's a race going on." Yes there was, and it was some good fun weaving through the Canadian forests of pines and poplar. Near the end of the lap there were a couple of steep singletrack climbs where I made a move to the front. At the end of the first lap I had maybe a 10-15 second gap on the next rider and wasn't sure how things were playing out behind me as there was no way to see the field like some other races and Jake was behind me and Jack was spit playing.

I kept the pace steady and found the second and third laps to be a bit cleaner as I knew where the key transition areas were for braking and riding the berms in the twisty singletrack. There were a three areas that stuck out that I look forward to each lap. One was this quarter pipe like berm at the bottom of a steep singletrack descent, that if you timed it right, you could catch some air and turn in mid air and clean the roots. The second was this 180 degree turn on the singletrack, slightly downhill, that you could go into with a bunch of speed and brake and lock the rear tire and skid around, while keeping enough momentum to click back in and get back up to speed. The third was the double arrow switchback descents that both Jake and I found that you needed to get behind the saddle to make the turn. Fun stuff.

The fourth lap I started to catch up to some riders who started in the waves back that made for challenging passing at times but the people were all so friendly and johnny on the spot to make for no issue. I was surprised how good I was feeling near the end of that fourth lap but that didn't last long going into the fifth lap. As the experts were to finish up with four laps, I headed out for my fifth and final lap. I wanted to keep my lap time close to the previous four so I made effort to ride the same gearing. On the last steep climb, which I wasn't able to clean the third and fourth laps, I concentrated hard to clean it....made it...... but it sure burned. The last lap came in a bit slower but it was all good as I finished off the race with no mechanicals and had a blast on the fun course and the new bike worked superb.
  Manitoba Cup #2 Results

After the race we visited with the friendly Benson family for a while and Jake talked me into one of the remaining hot dogs left on the grill. There wasn't much choice as the veggie burgers and meat burgers were gone, but Jake was right, it was quite tasty (and big) and I got my sodium stores replenished. Back on the road and no troubles at the border (didn't even have to show the permission slip from Jonell)! As we rolled through Thief River Falls, we noticed portable looking permanent Off Da Taco stand so we stopped to get our fill. Sweet, now I don't have to go to We Fest this year.

Jeff Hall World Cup Update

As many mountain bikers know, Jeff Hall of Farmington, MN is on a rigorous National and International race schedule in effort to qualify for the 2008 Olympic team. USA Cycling will select a group of riders that have earned the most UCI points during the 2007 season and be placed on a "long list" and will race the early 2008 World Cups. The top three riders (assuming the US holds a top five world ranking) will be selected to the Olympic team based on World Cup performance. To earn UCI points, learn experience racing World Cups, Jeff is over in Europe right now racing rounds 2 and 3 with a smaller UCI race in Austria in between. The first two World Cups have seen over 200 riders per event. UCI has required riders to have at least 20 UCI points just to start. With that said, start position is very critical as the racing is almost pure chaos.

I touched base with Jeff and his dad, Mike Hall, earlier this week as they were in Germany making way to Austria for a UCI race this coming weekend:

• How has the first two world cups gone and how does it compare to racing in the National series?
  Well they have gone ok. I am still learning how important the starts are at the world cups and I hope to improve them. With huge fields and short laps it is a lot different from the Nationals, you can't even compare them. The nationals have maybe 75-100 racers, with long laps and nobody watching on shitty courses and the world cups have 220 racers, really short laps, 20,000 people watching and the courses are really fun.
• The Germany race was quite muddy, how did that go for you?
  The mud was fun and not a factor for me, other than all the running we had to do. The technical stuff was nasty but rideable for me, but a lot of Europeans could not ride it so it was slow going the first lap or two, back to getting a better start. I really did feel strong but with a short lap, only about 70 guys finished on the leaders lap. I made 4 out of 7 and ended up 94th out 210.
• You typically find your form later in the year. Has that been the case this year in light of the early National series? Are you hoping for a late season push when other riders might be burning out? Has your training load been different this year or more specific?
  I better have a stronger 2nd half. I was fighting allergies early but those are gone and I am feeling better than April so I hope the next few races go better. My training is a bit different with all of the flying and faster races, but for most part right now it is the same.
• What are your plans this week as you prepare for WC #3 in Switzerland?
  I will do a lower UCI race in Austria this weekend and then head to Sui for the WC. It is pretty interesting trying to eat and get around over here, but I am getting by. The road riding is awesome with a lot of small roads with no traffic and tiny villages everywhere. Everybody loves bikers over here.
• Vienerschnitzel?
  No veiner yet, maybe after the last WC. It is very spending traveling and eating out a lot, so if anyone is interested, I have a Paypal on my web site - jeffhallmountainbiking.com.
  Thanks Jeffh

World Cup #2 Results

 

Mike provides an interesting and exciting point of view of the start of the race:

First you order up about 3 -4 inches of rain just as you arrive after the 1.25 hour drive through the Black Forest. So as the rain starts, I position the SUV under the biggest tree and huddle under the rear tail gate. Then it let loose, the sky opened up & it DUMPED rain. More good times!! I wasn't able to fit the team tent in the duffel, so we do what we do anyway. Mount up the mud tires, just like the team was doing next to us under their tent. Warm up for Jeff. Or cool down depending how one looks at it, cause it was raining & the temps had dropped. When you have over 200 pro men mountain biker racers, you use fencing to corral 50 riders in each corral according to your number. You can do the math, there are 5 corrals full of pumped up Europeans with 9 Americans sprinkled in. They try to put at least 1 American in each corral. Then they call each rider up by his number, all 208 of them. OK, I'll bet you can't wait for the start. Either can Jeff!! My last minute advice is not what you might think, it isn't go fast... It is, keep your elbows out and don't plan on making any friends out there, cause in about 2 minutes all hell is going to break loose!!
The dude on the speaker says something that I don't understand, but it must mean GO!! The whole pack starts moving & in an instant you better have your elbows out & not trying to make friends. The start lasts for about 10 minutes. 208 Men riding their bikes as fast as humanly possible - Throw in a couple S turns just to make things really exciting, the fact is it is raining & muddy with a couple of wooden bridge crossings. After all that excitement, they all have to fit down a trail that is wide enough to fit 1 bike at a time. Now singletrack is the purest form of mountain biking but, if you & 208 of your buddies hit that tiny opening at the same time it could even put a little strain on the best of friendships. I'll bet everyone knows someone that likes to be in the lead. A tiny bit thrilling!! I asked Jeff how did the start go? He said he couldn't see a thing with the mud & he didn't fall down cause he was throwing elbows. Don't fall down!!

 

Looking Ahead

Both the MNSCS and WORS resume this weekend with the WORS seeing the debut of its marathon event, the Rudy Rack Big Ring Classic, at Nine Mile Forest in Wasaua, WI. Elite men will be racing four laps with each lap almost 10 miles long.  Steeplechase ski area is the venue for MNSCS #2. This second year event will see a new climb for the Experts along with new singletrack for all classes.

Keep the wheels moving!!