Midwest MTB Racing Recap

Last week son Jack and I headed west to hook up with son Jake and friend Lars Ellefson in Colorado for the USA Cycling National mountain bike championships at Sol Vista. Jake had spent the week previous with the Ellefson family in Durango, riding the sweet trails in the area.

After a good trip out enjoying a few museums along the way and a stop in the Black Hills to check out one of the forest road trails near the high point of the Hills, we eventually made our way to the race venue to pre-ride the course. Jake and I hooked up with fellow MN rider Trent Warner to pre-ride the "green" loop, the course for Jake and Trent the next day, while Lars did a hot lap on the "pink" loop, course for his event. The four loops laid out for all the various classes all ascended up a steep pitch before sustained climbing to the top and each loop all descended down from the top of the mountain on fresh cut singletrack that included a technical drop with at least three lines, roots, powdery dust, rocks mixed in for good measure and a sharp left at the bottom, pretty sweet I thought.

After a ride in the morning up some steep road to open up the legs we went to the venue to watch Lars and Midwest riders that had made the trip west to rip it up. Riders competing at the championships had to qualify at select races throughout the country including the WORS cup in Wisconsin and the upcoming Laddies Loppet stage race at Maplelag Resort.

Placings by Midwest riders on day one include a 19th place finish by Dallas Fowler in the U23, 4th place by Jack Hinkens, 14th place by David Black and 24th by Aristotle Peters in Jr 17-18 Cat 1, 5th place by Riley Kopesky in Cat 3 JR 15-18, 7th place by Trent Warner, 15th place by Myles Beach, 19th by Nathan Labecki, 23rd by Gage Rodriguez, 27th by Mitchell Bogardus, 37th Casey Hildebrandt in Cat 2 JR 15-18, 7th place by Scott Spoo in Cat 2 19-29, 2nd place by Tim Williams 3rd place by Jason Sherman in Cat 2 30-34, 7th place by Eric Lebow in Cat 2 35-39, and 13th place by Warren Fowler in Cat 2 50+,

Saturday morning included more cross country action with Jake's event slated at 8 am. We left the lodging at 6am and the temp was 30 degrees.....nice! Jake rolled off the line with 25 other riders fighting his way through some traffic before settling in on the main climb to the top. After two laps of the longer loop on mountain, he rolled across 9th. Also racing at the same time was the Pro Open singlespeed class and I got to watch TJ Woodruff pass through a few times en route to a second place finish in that class. Also racing in the morning I was able to watch was Dallas Fowler who scored a podium finish at 3rd place in Cat 1 19-29, after racing the day before. Dan Meyer posted 7th in Cat 1 55-59 topped off Midwest placings in the morning.


On tap for racing action next were the Pro xc races. Minnesota female Pros Jenna Rinehart and Kyia Anderson had nice call ups and both riders had great starts en route to 17th and 33rd places, respectively. After watching the first lap of the Pro women race, Jack and I went back to our accommodation so I could do final prep for my race. Came back to the venue and I had to find Lar's car as he had my racing kit but had trouble finding his car. Didn't worry about it as the wheels were moving and figured this would be my "warm-up". Finally found his car and made my way to the start area where they were announcing first call for staging. Yikes! So much for those jumps to wake up the legs. I had a pretty good call up but knew the plan of attack would be to ready steady and work my way up the best I could throughout the race. Being called up next to me was fellow Minnesota rider Jesse Rients.

The start was crazy hard as usual and I settled in near the back only to have every alarm possible go off in my body. With the heart rate pretty much pinned I had to settle down and level things off before finding the race pace groove. As I neared the top of the climb, it felt like I had been blowing up balloons all afternoon for one of the kid's birthday parties as my head felt like it was going to explode. Soon we were descending and hitting one of the coolest part of the race courses which was the technical dusty and bumpy drop. I think everyone that was from the Midwest was in this section and the cheering and "party" atmosphere was awesome and much appreciated.

The second lap I started to feel better and the third was the best and ready to pick off some more riders but that was to be it as the 80% USA cycling rule was in affect and with the shorter laps, my laps were numbered with Todd Wells and Jeremey Horgan Kobelski absolutely dominating the field. Near the end of the third lap I was trying to clean the lines as best as possible to hold them off but when my gps went flying off I was in a state of "that just didn't happen" and debated stopping, next thing I knew JHK and Wells came flying by and I hopped on the wheels and enjoyed the ride to the finish as I noticed some heads turning and I am sure they were wondering, who is this guy? Enjoyed the course, thought it was fun. Watched the finish and called it a day at the venue. Jesse Rients put a solid finish in 36th place representing the flatlanders nicely.

Sunday was another full plate of racing. We arrived at the venue early so Jake and Lars could get a couple runs on the Super D course. I wasn't planning on doing any pre runs so to be with Jack. But he hooked up with a kid from SoCal named Jag and they worked the pump track and screwed around on the bottom chair of a non-running chairlift so I was able to take a practice run with Lars and Jake. Kyia stated "The course had NO room for passing other than this hill unless you were crazy and wanted to make really risky moves. The top section of the course was really rocky and the bottom half was all banked berms and table tops." Overall it was a super fun course and the LeMans style start and positioning going into the race would be key. I was bummed I didn't bring the small camera along when I rode with Jake and Lars so I brought it up for the race run. Took a few pics of the start and had a fun chat with downhill stud Eric Carter after he did some jumping jacks.

Didn't have the best start but the last National Super D I got plowed over by a crazy fast downhiller so I wasn't too worried about it. I did get in front of a few and I know I was holding them up in the hairy sections. Near the end I nailed a big rock, flatted and being somewhat close to the finish, I decided to just ride the rim in. Yikes! At the finish I watched the rest of the classes come down including Lars who was ripping it very nicely on a hard tail en route to the National Championship in the Cat 1 19-29 class which was impressive since the 26" hard tail "is dying out". Next would be the Pro race and Kyia Anderson also made podium with a solid fifth place finish. Seemed like forever until Jake came and seeing him roll second was completely awesome and not expecting since there was a field of 40+ riders including mostly downhill and big mountain riders.

After the Super D, Jake's short track was one of the first to take off and he had about 15 minutes to switch his number plate over to his other bike. Other Midwest riders in the combined Jr class included Minnesota riders Jack Hinkens and David Black. Jack broke his chain right off the start, Lars gave Jack his bike but a UCI official chased down Jack saying, "can't do that". Was fun while it lasted. Jake and David rode solid before being pulled recorded 23rd and 24th placings as the climbing specialists took advantage of the hill and short loops to work over the field rather quickly.

Up next watched Lars and Dallas Fowler battle it out in the Cat 1 19-29 where Dallas rode solid for a second place and Lars nailed down fourth. Pro women were next and Kyia was the lone Minnesota rider, giving it her all before being pulled as well and recording a 27th place finish. It was fun to watch even though the course was not the best for the riders and a level playing field as many riders voiced complaints after the course was marked.

Jack and Jag wanted to ride up the chairlift so we rode up to the top which was pretty sweet as we could watch the downhillers take some practice runs before their final. I reported a 90ft gap jump but the jump was 48ft to be exact but the landing was marked out to 90ft. Either way, it was pretty intense and asked a few riders about the course and they said it was a good course. Bumped into a rider who grew up in Detroit Lakes that I used to ride and race with back in the early 90's when I first started riding and he now races downhill. He has been doing it for over 15 years which is impressive since it seemed like there were a ton of gravity guys with slings, crutches, etc. Married with a kid that watched him stick gap jumps. "Dude, you launch off those big jumps and it is so scary and your body goes numb but then you land and you want to do it over again".

After we came down the lift, I watched the awards for the previous classes then had about 15 minutes to get ready for the short track. No warm up for the short track isn't the best plan of attack but thats how it was and thought I would give it a go and see what happened. Lined up next to TJ Woodruff who ended up at 37th and I managed three lung burning laps before getting pulled. Good workout and the crowd action was awesome.

All in all it was a great weekend of racing and nice to see the strong contingent of Midwest folks. Most everyone I talked to reported feeling the same way as Eric Lebow reports:

"That was the first race I've done at altitude so wasn't sure what to expect. I was surprised how much it affected me and how hard it was to recover after the big climbs. It felt a bit like racing with one lung. After about a half hour I settled in to a manageable heart rate and had a blast. Rubber side down all day and had a smile on my face the whole race. I missed the podium by two spots but had a great experience and fantastic time."

With a new timing company doing results, the ages and hometown were not listed. If you were at Nationals and I missed mentioning your name, please let me know so I can recognize you in next report, .

After the race we loaded up, and started heading home. We went through Rocky Mountain National Park which was absolutely incredible and way beyond what I was expecting. Totally cool that we were able to use the pair of JibSkates thrown in just in case we saw a patch of skiable snow. Made it to the Rawhide motel that night  in Lusk, WY which was everything I expected.

Last day on the road highlight was stopping at Amidon, ND and our ascent of the highest point in ND, White Butte at 3506 ft. For the record, White Butte sits at the same elevation as the low point on the Izaak Walton ski trails in Essex, MT, same elevation as the high point of Mt Snow, VT and 1200ft higher than the highest point in MN!! After an interesting adventure to find the best way to ascend to the top, we drove through some fields before finding "the fence" and a cattle path that eventually turned into some sweet singletrack. Jake and I biked while Jack hiked/jogged/ran which was about the same pace as Jake and I since some of the terrain was to technical to ride. After cleaning the top, I took in the view, Jack started heading down, and Jake cherry picked some lines before Jake and I both rode down exploring both sides of the butte. Overall an fascinating place that includes the White River Group and Golden Valley formations, geologically speaking.


Midwest Racing Action

Bruce headed north over the weekend to catch the action at Lincoln Park at Duluth (id link) and the WORS had racing action at Sunburst (race report).  Results from WORS.

Looking Ahead

About the author... Jay Richards maintains a very active lifestyle. He somehow finds time between managing a full-time resort (Maplelag) and bringing up a family of four boys with his wife Jonell, to compete in both mountain bike and cross-country ski races.  Jay rides for Maplelag Resort, Giant and Paramount Sports (Fargo, ND) and enters his 19th year of racing mountain bikes and promoting mountain bike races.