Minnesota Mountain Bike Series

At about 9 am on race day, I was wondering, “How the heck did I get here and how am I going to get through this day!”

 

I have been involved with mountain bike racing since 2000. I started helping out on the organizational level about three years ago when the City of Elk River Parks and Recreation Coordinator asked me if I could offer guidance on hosting more mountain bike races to increase tourism to their city. From there, it went crazy! The next thing I knew I was advising them on how to host an MNSCS event! ... And that is how it all began.

 

I have been to many different kinds of races over the last 30 years, and I tried to remember what I did and didn’t like about them. I really wanted to make our event stand out among the others and give as much as possible back to the racers. The free T-shirts, an endless supply of racer food for ALL the classes, the double-stuffed Hammer Nutrition goodie bags and the full 15-deep, maximum payout for the Elite class with big shiny trophy-checks too. When there were only 8 Elite women to enter, we gave away the rest of their cash as SWAG to the Sport, Comp and Expert racers along with the hundreds of other items donated by sponsors. We were very fortunate to have such great sponsors and local shops to help us out.

 

Once the general layouts were determined about a year ago, we had to dedicate a ton of trail work days to get all the special trails cut in and ready. I also wanted to make a few other changes to the way our course was laid out. The intent was to change up the balance of power a little bit. Most of the courses the MNSCS races are held on are at ski hills. That means that there are going to be some serious climbs where the power riders will have the advantage. Those with the better bike handling skills though, rarely have the opportunity to use those skills to pass the power riders. I wanted to provide the opportunity for skills to pass power. For that we designed and built a few optional routes, routes with two different lines to choose from. One line would require a minimal amount of skill, but would be much slower and longer. The other, if ridden how it was designed to be ridden, would be shorter and much faster, thus allowing a more skilled rider to pass a more powerful but less skilled rider with no interference. This incorporated into the Sport class by offering the “Expert Line” along the road as an option. I did my best to make it clear during the announcements, what the intent of that option was. I told them that if they could jump and clear every feature along that line, it would be much faster than taking the regular trail. At the same time though, if they could not jump everything, it would be much slower than the regular trail. In the comp/expert course, we built a pretty gnarly downhill rock garden that offered two progressively easier bypass routes around it. Each of those was much longer than riding straight through the rocks. I believe Elite class riders Brendan Moore and one other used this section of rocks to pass two other riders. I was very happy when I heard that the design intent of that feature was used just how I imagined it. One of the coolest new features on the trail this year was the over and under Pirate Bridge, inspired by the Red Wing trail. We were very fortunate to have a rider and trailworker ask if he could donate all of the materials and engineering to build it.

 

The Kid’s Comp course was the most difficult for me to design. I realized I didn't have a good grasp on the abilities of the 6 to 12 year old riders. Thankfully, some of the LCR misphits came out on Saturday to help me get the length dialed in.  For the Citizen course,  it was a tough, but necessary decision to run their course through the first two sections of the park only. Sections 3 & 4 have way too many climbs, and many of the advance features would require a skill level above that of the average competitor. Safety first. Next, I needed to select a design and lap count for the Sport, Comp and Expert classes. For Expert and Comp the layout was easy, make them ride everything, and then some. Lap counts… If the fast guys could do a lap in about 37 minutes, then it would be an hour and 51 minutes for three laps, or two hours and 28 minutes for four laps, plus the prologue. So three laps for Expert and two laps for Comp it was. Where does that leave Sport? They can’t do just one lap.  Two laps it is, but I’ll need to shorten their laps to make it less than the Comp race. Take out a whole bunch of climbing, that should help. Too bad that means that they miss out on the descents and fun stuff too. Oh well, they’ll have to move up to Comp to get that... or just come back and ride it all whenever they want!

 

The morning of the race started early...4:30 am early. Seriously, that should be against the law! I Get up, hook up the trailer, hit the gas station for a quality breakfast, and jump on the freeway to Elk River. As I arrived at the trail I made sure to take in how quiet and still everything was. It was empty, but not for long. Soon it would be teeming with people of all ages who will have come from near and far ready for fun and excitement. I hoped they would not be disappointed. In fact, that was my biggest fear. Well, that and how the heck we were going to get 290 cars in the lot! I had time to take one deep breath and then the event staff began to arrive. They were all shuttled in to help alleviate potential cramped parking. We started with a team meeting to go over all of the tasks for the day. This was the first time I had met many of them. The first thing that I made very clear was that this was a State Championship Series event, and that it needed to be handled with the utmost seriousness and respect. Every job was vital to the outcome of this event. Every single person who helped was fully dedicated to this philosophy. I went over the game plan for parking, registration, timing, racer food, vendors, sponsors, course marshals, safety crew, everything on the list. Once that was completed I put up the final pieces of caution tape out on the course, preparing it for the first races of the day. Soon, racers began filing into the parking lot, all of them following the precise direction of the parking staff. Registration was up and running and they were handing out the free T-shirts to each registered racer along with their goodie bags filled with information and freebies. By 9:00 am when the first race left the starting line, the event staff was really starting to see the system take shape. Most of them had never been to a bike race either, but they followed directions perfectly and quickly learned the system. I could only imagine how confusing it must have sounded to them as I was explaining, “Okay, first the racers come through here, and go into the woods way over there. Then they come out of the woods over here and go back into the woods in this spot here. After they pass the first time, then move the cones from over here to over there. And don’t forget to stop traffic either, and make sure...”, you get the idea. It was perfectly clear in my head, I just needed to get it properly conveyed to the staff. From there, the rest of the day was a blur. It was more of the same, but different. All of the hours and hours of planning seemed to be paying off. Races seemed to be flowing from one to the next successfully. People were laughing and having fun. They were actually enjoying the trail and this race that we had put so much time into planning. It wasn’t easy keeping on top of everything (the cliché about “herding cats” comes to mind), but the two people that I had chosen to be my main troubleshooters took on a great deal of responsibility for me. That helped tremendously. (Thanks again Stephanie and Kristin!) In the end it was a fantastically hectic time planning and executing an event like this, but the reward was well worth the effort as I observed the good times being had by those in attendance. As a racer, this experience has given me a renewed respect for those that take the time to be the planners for events like this!

 

Here are props for those that rose highest to the course challenges and took home the overall class wins. In the Kid’s Comp class there was only 14 seconds covering the top three, with Travis Caflisch in 1st, Jesse Busse in 2nd and Ian Price in 3rd for the Men.

For the Women it was all about Briana McLagan taking the win.

 

 In the Citizen class, Andrew Barlage took 1st, Matt Leizinger in 2nd and Jacque Poquette in 3rd with less than a minute from 1st to 3rd. With a field of 15 Women in the Citizen class there a lot of good racing out there. Rachel Jensen was the fastest, followed by Tara Steele and Samantha Bushendorf.

 

In the Sport Men class it was Chad Griffin out front with Ray Osowski and Paul Cullen close behind. For the Sport Women, Kris Brazil took top honors, followed by Jessica Wittwer in 2nd and 18 & under racer and LCR team member Jordan Horner placed third.

 

When the 79 Comp racers left the starting line, we knew it was going to be an exciting race. The first finisher was Andy Onken, with Josh Collins and Chris Ames both less than a minute behind.

 

In the Elite field, there were 35 Men and 8 Women gunning for over $1500.00 in cash. In the Women’s Class, Jenna Rinehart of Mankato, MN put the pedal to the metal and got to the finish line first. Behind her was Kyia Anderson in 2nd place and Jennifer Fisher in 3rd. For the Elite Men it was all about Brendan Moore. He had nearly a two minute lead over 2nd and 3rd place riders Sam Oftedahl and Jeff Hall.

 

By all accounts the event was a great time and a huge success. I was personally thanked by a bazillion racers and spectators on how well organized everything was. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the racers, event staff, volunteers, trailworkers, and sponsors that made this event what it was. Awesome.