Round 4 of the Lake Superior Gravity occurred over the weekend. And surprise surprise, it was another wet race weekend!!
Bike Duluth Festival is held at Spirit Mountain in Duluth, MN and has 3 days of racing! It had been dry in Duluth for a while, but with a bike race happening, they ended up getting over 4 inches of rain the week leading up to the race! Causing some very saturated ground to start the weekend off.
Friday
Friday the weekend ramps up with Chainless Downhill racing in the evening. Riders get two chances with no chain on their bike, to be the fastest down a modified Cheese grader to Smorgasbord lap.
Conditions were great, some costumes came out for the fun of the event, and people had a lot of fun with this no pressure style of racing.
Lilli Regenold and Payton McKeown got the first wins of the weekend!
Not long after the race ended, rain started showing up. It mostly sprinkled into the evening. Leaving riders hopeful for just a bit of wet dirt for the morning. Well…. Riders weren’t so lucky. It rained overnight, and at about 6am, it was raining very hard on the mountain! This made the trails, very, very slippy!
For reference, this ditch is usually completely dry. And this was 6am Saturday morning!
Saturday
The advanced enduro riders started off the day at 9am ready to tackle their seven stages for the day. Having to climb to the top for 4 of those stages, while getting to choose when to use 3 lift run!
To start the day only one stage was open, Monkey Business. The very start of this stage has a bridge with a slight turn in it. And well…. It might have been the scariest thing racers encountered all weekend!! It took out multiple riders. Stitches, broken levers, etc. etc. It was a scary way to start your day!
After stage one riders had the option of three stages that were open simultaneously. Beam to Fern, All Knowlton Rocks, and Port Blast Man.
Beam to Fern is a new addition to the trail network. Still a part of the bike park, but you can’t actually get to the top from the lift. So this stage was a mandatory pedal up. The top had some fast, flowing berms that lead into a bit of tighter singletrack that held a couple punchy climbs! Then a fresh cut section that, if you were one of the later riders to hit, was like pure peanut butter! Slippy, rootty peanut butter! If you were able to stay clean through this section and put some power down, you made up a lot of time!
All Knowlton Rocks has been raced many times over the last few years. But they like to switch up the taping of the lower rock section. This year did not disappoint. Avoiding the traditional rock drop at the top, riders veered left into the rocks! They then had to choose between two lines. The first right was very tight to get into, especially with the wet weather, but then had a faster exit speed. The lower line allowed riders to carry more speed through the rocks, but then it was a slight uphill to get out of it and into the next section of the trail. The consensus among riders was that the upper line was the faster line, but it wasn’t without its risks. Many riders got hung up or crashed trying to get into this line!
Port Blast Man had people talking for many reasons! Port Gitchi-Gummi had a massive mud hole right as racers entered the first section of woods! Riders would come blasting in off the start gate, then just get buried in mud! You could see them from the lift and from the climb trail. So it was pretty funny to listen to. The other reason riders were a buzz on this stage was the fresh rebuild of MoonMan. MoonMan had been closed so far for the season, and this weekend was the opening of it’s rebuild. Jumps had been refreshed, the end of the trail had been changed due to lift construction. There were fresh grassy corners. People were really excited to ride this stage!
After the 4 morning stages, riders got a short lunch break while timing systems were swapped around. The afternoon block of stages consisted of Wrecking Anvil, Port Blast Smorg and Leeky Candy Road. Many riders chose to save two or all three of their lift rides for the afternoon stages. Which seemed like a wise strategy.
Port Blast Smorg went through that amazing mud puddle just like riders did in the morning. At least now they knew it was coming. Then the rain had made conditions in Smorgasbord absolutely fantastic!
Wrecking Anvil had some varied conditions however. The top portion of the trail was running very well, but riders had to be cautious of the taping, as the organizers taped off some of the main lines for the race. Towards the bottom the conditions turned to soup! Lots of standing water, mud tracking over rocks and roots. Just a big old messy puddle of a trail! This caught some riders off guard after the upper trail conditions were so good, causing them to stall out or crash.
Leeky Candy Road had some similar conditions. Sprung a Leek and Candyland were in good condition. But lower Rocky Roady had some treacherously wet rocks to navigate!
After all seven stages were conqured, Ryan Zinzow stood above the rest in the men’s field. While Lilli Regenold beat out the field of women for the victory!
Sunday
The weather for Sunday was absolutely lovely! However, the ground was still very saturated and some smoke had rolled in from the wildfires. The downhill race takes place on Calculated Risk, and that trail is notorious for holding water. It’s part of the reason it often is the last trail of the year to be opened up. So although it hadn’t rained for over 24 hours, the trail was still very very wet! So wet in fact that trail crew went out in the morning to work on the trail some, pushing practice and racing back by an hour.
Racers got 2 hours of practice on the race course that had some changes from previous years. A new entrance to the Terrarium section had been cut in. Riders puzzled over this for a while, with two main lines coming to light. Riders right entrance had a bit of a double over some chunky rocks, into a hard compression that spit you over more rocks, and into another hole! The left entrance was an up and over rock roll that you had to do a bit more navigating into and out of, but was certainly lower risk. After riders got through all that it was a grassy tight right into a little bit of uphill before dropping back into the big spectator region of the Terrarium.
The lower section of the trail was similar to years past. The final jump had been touched up, a little bit of taping had changed, the only main difference was all the mud and water! Racers had to charge though sopping wet berms, and rock gardens with standing water in them. It made for some exciting racing!!
Spectators came out to watch the action, and they were not disappointed. The fresh section had racers struggling to stay on their bikes while pushing the pace. A grill and hot dogs had made it up to the Terrarium for the fun. Plus racers were giving it their all to carry speed through the mud to put down their fastest times!
Local rippers Thomas Allison and Lilli Regenold stood above the rest!
The weekend also held a multitude of other races from Adult Strider Bike Racing, Youth Downhill, multiple Cross Country races, Kids Striders Racing, Adaptive Clinics and more. It’s always an amazing event and we can’t wait to come back next year for more excitement (and hopefully less mud)!
Photos are from Dylan Juchemich! Shoot him a message if you’d like to purchase photos from him.
Check out these videos from Alex too see more of what trail conditions where like over the weekend!