This may have been one of the most Fall, Fall Enduros we’ve seen. Chilly temps in the mornings, cold rain, and some of the best colors we’ve seen!
Riding the Marquette Mountain lift for practice and for race day was a treat. Views out over the landscapes of the upper peninsula were spectacular. I didn’t look at the color forecast, but they sure felt like peak colors out there! Many trees had not dropped their leaves, so the race trails were still very visible. If you’ve ever ridden wet trails covered with fall leaves, it’s terrifying! So what a blessing to have the colors without the added fear factor.
Saturday morning temps were reading as low as 32 as riders were getting to the hill. Luckily the race didn’t start until 10:45. At that point temps had risen to a more comfortable level for the day. Sport racers went off to do their two stages off the mountain while the experts got to tackle their 4 on mountain stages.
This year the courses were focused on being short and technical.
Jawbone is historically the easy trail of the weekend. This year they added in sections of Snake Oil to add some singletrack, rooty tech to the stage! It was a fun addition to the stage and certainly kept you on your toes much more than the standard Jawbone!
Fidsum (Fiddlers to Gypsum) is fun and fast at the top before diving into the Gypsum rock garden that is often the watch point during the downhill races! This section caught out many throughout the weekend. Riders had options of a pretty straight line down the rocks, or they could meander left to right as they navigate the section. The sand at the bottom of the trail was very extra sandy as Marquette had not gotten much rain in the past month.
Gyplers (Gypsum to Fiddlers) may have been the most technical trail of the morning for the experts. The top section of Gypsum has an off camber rock that drops left into a nastily blown out left hand corner. This corner had a rut dug deep into the sandy soil, with multiple sharp rocks protruding from the left, sure to catch your pedal if you didn’t get your line just right. Coming into Fiddlers, riders expected to be met by the normal Fiddlers chute, but were met with some tape and a freshly raked in section around the chute. Tight and skinny with a steep exit, it was a fun bit of trail to avoid the chute that has gotten very rough over the years. The normal tight and rooty corners of Fiddlers met riders before one more fresh cut finished out the trail.
Plug-Hemi-Easy Rider was very popular with riders. A great combo platter of trails darting off to the riders left side of the mountain. This stage had a mix of high speed and tech with a few jumps spattered throughout.
Racers got to choose their own order for these morning stages before a short break while timing systems were moved around. After the break, the Sport and Beginner riders came over to the mountain for their afternoon, while the experts left the mountain for 3 stages.
Sothern Cross has often been the entrance into either Doctors or Old Yellow, but this year took center stage the entire way down the hill. A technical section up top was taped to ensure riders couldn’t just use the high line to get out of the chunk! Then skipping past the often used turn offs, riders kept charging down Southern Cross, a very fast section of trail!
Chunder Muffin is a classic trail that is chunky from start to finish. Starting with a couple different rock rolls that if you’d like to, you can catch some air off of. Riders then are challenged to carry momentum over rocks of all shape and orientation. If you can keep your speed up and clear some of the natural doubles throughout, you are gifted a much different experience of trail. Catching the doubles allows you to carry enough speed to open up more opportunity to catch air. And you may already know this, but trails can be much smoother when you aren’t touching them!!
Bread Basket-225 is a fun new way to incorporate 225 into the race. Often 225 is raced, but adding in Bread Backet was a fun change. Some jumps here and there and coming into tech at high speeds keeps riders on their toes. With a bit of a rock garden sending riders into the high speed section of 225. Sandy high speed corners awaited you as you fly over the hill. Then the stage ended at the road, which many riders enjoyed as it cut off a bit of stage that is often raced.
Towards the end of the afternoon stages, a few sprinkles fell, but not enough to do anything. Which was a reminder of what was predicted for the evening.
A long afternoon break as racers await darkness to fall. Many riders head into town or the T-Bar to snag some food before the night stage.
The night stage went down OG DH as it often does, with a little bit of different taping riders got to try their hand at riding after the sun went down. This has been one of the calling cards of Fall Enduro! Not often are their lights strung up along a trail or archways lighting up your path as you barrel down a trail! Riders head up the hill just after 7pm to arrive at the top of Marquette Mountain just prior to sunset. More sprinkles started as riders started heading down the trail. By the end, riders were certainly riding in the rain! But the crowds stayed out and cheered on the racers!
After the night stage the awards for fall enduro occurred, followed by the Lake Superior Gravity Series Overall awards for the year.
Thanks to FlowTrack MTB there were cash payouts for both the expert and sport categories at this race!
For the day, Ryan Zinzow was able to hold off the charging local of Micheal Noble. Securing yet another win and $1,000 in Marquette.
The ladies battled it out to the end with only 2 seconds separating them at the end of the day. Lillia Regenold took the win and $1,000 on the day over Mara Breeuwer!
Then on to the Lake Superior Gravity Series Overalls!
It’s always exciting to do the math at the end of the season and see how things change at the end. Riders lowest score is dropped and bonus points added for doing all the rounds. That last score can really throw the spreadsheet for a loop!
Coming into the weekend the top five men and women were as seen below.
But at the end of the day we saw a few riders jump around in points!
Mara Breeuwer was able to lay claim to the top spot in the women’s overall! After many battles all year with Lillia, the bonus points made the difference for Mara to take home the $1,000!
After Ryan dropped his zero score from Ride the Keweenaw he jumped up into first place for his second year in a row winning the $1,000 overall prize!
Another year of LSGS racing down. A season with lots of fun events and memories made. Hopefully you were able to make it to a few of them this year and we look forward to seeing you at more next year!
Cheers,
-Alex
Photos by Ryan Stephens Photography!
Thanks to our 2026 Sponsors for making the payouts possible!