This is the first year of the new name for Duluth Trails Festival! Formerly Bike Duluth Festival, it’s now officially being run by Duluth Devo and COGGS and there’s been addition of running events to the weekend. So it was the perfect time to rebrand to Duluth Trails Festival!
The Enduro and Downhill portion of the weekend is the 4th stop of the Lake Superior Gravity Series as well!
The weekend kicks off on Friday with one of the most fun events of the year, chainless downhill!
Racing down smorgasbord. Riders remove their chains and dawn their silliest costumes for a best of 2 run format. With well over 100 riders participating, it’s always a hoot!
Have you ever tried riding without a chain? It certainly exposes weak spots in your riding when you can’t pedal out of a section you messed up haha
Bodee McFadden and Lilli Regenold took top spots for this event!!
Saturday is enduro day!
Darn near perfect weather conditions were so very welcomed by racers! Hot enough to sweat and get a little sunburn, but comfortable when not racing. After the sauna of Miner’s Revenge, we couldn’t complain.
The advanced riders conquered 7 stages on the day! 3 in the morning, 3 mid day, then one final stage to end it. As per usual for this race, riders were gifted 3 uses of the Spirit Mountain lift to use at any point during the day.
Some people used them after mechanical issues so they wouldn’t miss stage cut off times. Some people used them intermittently throughout the day. Others just saved all three for their last three stages. Whichever you chose, it is always nice to save the legs a bit!
The three morning stages included Beam Fern, a fun flow trail that has a sprinkling of tech towards the bottom located just off to the side of the mountain.
Sprung Boot. Which took a traverse over to Candy Land and down to Boot. The green traverse is such a fun section of trail, but certainly difficult to race pace! Then Boot itself had some interesting tech that drew a nice crowd during the race!
And All Knowlton Rocks. A classic stage that usual gets a fun tape change at the bottom. This year the tape was “easy” compared to previous years. Which probably caused more problems for riders than expected. Many riders didn’t look hard at the area and then during the race ended up off the good line and into the low area! I heard many people say it caught them out during their race runs.
In the morning, Bodee McFadden and Ryan Zinzow were battling back and forth. Bodee was able to win two of the morning stages, putting him just over a second in front of Ryan! Keeping things exciting for the afternoon! Lilli Regenold was able to put in a decent gap of about 20 seconds over Mara Breeuwer in the women’s field!
Afternoon riders got a three pack with some interesting combos.
Port Blast Smorgvil took a pretty standard route down to Smorg, with some lines being taped off, but then cut out of Smorg above the drop. Having riders sprint across the ski hill before dropping into the tech of Anvil! Certainly a fun way to mix up that stage!
Happy Cat Hog traversed similarly to Sprung Boot, but went all the way to the Happy Hub. Then dropped into Happy Camper before skipping over to the bottom of Wild Cat and ending with the jumps of Boss Hog!
And we got the return of Greenman!! The All Weather traverse with a uphill spirit into arguably one of the more demanding sections of trail is certainly either loved or hated by riders! The trail was closed all of last year due to the construction of their new lift. But now it’s back and it was running better than ever!! This was probably the most talked about stage of the weekend. Good amounts of line choice and a steep gradient makes this trail a favorite for spectators and riders!
After the second set of stages, Lilli held her lead over Mara at around 20 seconds coming into the final stage. While in the men’s field, Ryan was able to take over the lead by around 7 seconds!
The final stage of the day brought together Monkey Business and the fresh bit of trail used for Downhill Midwest last year! They modified the Downhill Midwest area slightly to make some areas a bit more approachable to all. Combined stuff the tech of Monkey made for a fun stage!
It was fun having one final stage at the end of the day! It was easy to then tell family and friends where and when they could watch. What a great way to end the Enduro!
Ryan Zinzow and Lilli Regenold were able to secure their wins on the day! Congrats to both of them!
After racing concluded riders and spectators went over to the new black jump line and watched the Whip Off! Riders went big on “pork chop”, the largest jump of the line. Showing off how sideways they could get! Hopefully this event continues on in the future!
Sunday brings Downhill racing action!
Racers tackled Calculated Risk! The go to Downhill race course at Spirit. There was a bit of a twist in the Terrarium. Last year Terrarium went from left to right, this year was right to left. With the left line having a few options on how to enter and get through it. This section caused havoc for many during the race. Weather you caught your front tire and got tossed over the bars or caught your rear and got a flat. Calc challenges riders of all levels!
Practice in the morning lead directly into seeding at 1pm. Times were ridge at the top. Then right back up the hill racers went to line up in order for their race runs!
Times were tight for the downhill race!
The top 8 were seperated by only 3 seconds!!
In the end, the locals came out on top.
Bodee McFadden put down a 2:14.5!
Lilli Regenold went 2:44.2!
Both crazy fast runs!
With the weekend concluded. We can say this was one of the best Duluth Trails Fest weekends ever! Great weather, great trails, lots of fun new activities! We can’t wait for next year!
Next up on the Lake Superior Gravity Series is the Copper Harbor Trails Fest!
Then Downhill Midwest #3 and Fall Enduro!
