Downhill Midwest

Marquette Fall Enduro Race Report

Alex — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 16:51:23 +0000

2025 Marquette Fall Enduro finished off the Enduro portion of the Lake Superior Gravity Series with a bang!

Who would have expected temps in the 80s and sunshine for October in the UP?? Pretty darn nice way to end the season!

For the morning the open category had 4 stages on Marquette Mountain. Riders pedalled up to the top for their first runs then got to utilize the lift for the other 3 runs.

Racers were treated to some fantastic stages on the mountain. Jawbone, Fiddlers Creek, Original DH and Boone’s to Hemi!

After the morning stages racers were met with a 3 pack of stages. Yah Hey, 225 to Carp Eh Diem, and Southern Cross to Doctors.

Riders get a few hours to recoup, refuel and change into their evening attire for the night stage! After the sun goes down riders get to rip down Original DH with their lights on! The trail is partially lined with lights up in the trees and spectators get to see what everyone dresses up as! A costume contest adds a little fun to an already awesome stage!

At the end of the day Ryan Zinzow took the almost sweep of every stage for the men. While Maria Horton did the same in the women’s category! Each of them won every stage but the night stage, in which they only dropped to second on the stage! Crazy impressive riding from both!

Fall Enduro also happens to be the finale of the enduro portion of Lake Superior Gravity Series. After prizes were handed out for the event, series podiums commenced.

After 6 races, the overalls came down to some tight point races. In the women’s category, Kyia Anderson inched out the win by 1 point over Mara Breeuwer!!! Lindsey Lee was able to hold on to the third place spot with only 5 points between her and the next two ladies.

In the men’s category Ryan Zinzow came away with the win! Bodee Mcfadden had second placed locked down, but 3rd place came down to the wire. In the end 3 people were within 5 points of each other and Payton Mckeown locked in the final spot on the podium.

But racing wasn’t over just yet. With then E-Bike race happening on Sunday! Participants got to do another 5 stages of racing Sunday morning with the assist of their e-bikes.

Beautiful weather yet again for the day treated the riders.

The brothers Payton and Kaden Mckeown took the top spots of the men’s podium with Jack Culvey not far behind.

Maria Horton took her second win of the weekend. With Kristy Mcbride and Sabrina Wallace coming in behind her.

The Lake Superior Gravity Series does track the two e-bike races that occur during their season. With Owen Vandal being the most consistent in the two events. While Maria took the win in the women’s category.

It was an amazing season of enduro’s for the Lake Superior Gravity Series and Marquette Fall Enduro is always an amazing way to finish off the year! We can’t wait for next year to get back to racing!!

Check out this fun recap from Marquette Fall Enduro!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @marquette_fall_enduro

Words – Alex Anderson

Photos – Dylan Juchemich

Loam Pass Launches 2026 Season Pass!!

Alex — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 13:49:58 +0000

Ride Now, Save Big and Unlock Exclusive Perks

Loam Pass, the ultimate multi-destination MTB season pass, returns October 1 with the launch of its 2026 pass — and it’s packed with more value than ever. Early buyers will score the lowest price of the year ($200), plus free access to the rest of the 2025 season, and new Pass Holder Perks from top industry brands.

With two free days at each of 70+ destinations, the Loam Pass unlocks rides at legendary bike parks and shuttle spots like Killington, Windrock, Angel Fire, Ride Rock Creek, Spider Mountain, and more.

In the Midwest there are currently 8 parks that partner with Loam Pass. Pine Mountain, Marquette Mountain, Chestnut Mountain, Spirit Mountain, The Highlands, Keweenaw Adventure Company, Shepherd Mountain, and Howler Bike Park.

And this year, Loam Pass adds even more value with exclusive discounts (10–40%) from brands like Crankbrothers, ARI, Bikeflights, and others — just for pass holders.

What’s New for 2026:

Ride Now: Buy early and ride the rest of 2025 free.
70+ Locations: Including icons like; Killington (VT), Angel Fire (NM), Windrock (TN), Ride Rock Creek (NC), Jackson Hole (ID) and Porcupine Shuttle (UT).
Perks from Top Brands: Save on components, travel, and gear from trusted MTB partners.
- Crankbrothers
- 6D Helmets
- ARI Bikes
- Troy Lee Designs
- Gripit Gloves
- BikeFlights
- EVO.com
- Train To Ride
- SCC Tech

How It Works:

Buy the pass at loampass.com, set it up, and start planning your fall and summer 2026 trips. Redeem two free days at each participating location, and take advantage of exclusive partner deals throughout the season.

Availability:

The 2026 Loam Pass Early Bird Sale runs October 1–14. Price: $200. Purchase your 2026 pass now and receive a 2025 pass good until the end of the year with 2 days at each destination.

DHMW Race Report

Alex — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:26:29 +0000

WE HOSTED OUR FIRST RACE!!!

The first ever Downhill Midwest race, and Lake Superior Gravity Series Finale went down September 12-14.

Coming into the weekend, the forecast called for high 70s and partly cloudy weather. But as we know, it’s a bike race, so expect rain! Sure enough, Friday morning rolls around and it rains. Not torrential downpour like it did during Bike Duluth Festival, but enough to make everything wet. After that it never dried out!

It didn’t rain anymore over the weekend. It was just some incredibly dense fog!! So much so that the course continued to stay wet, or even get more wet!

The fog made for some amazing conditions all weekend. The course was damp. Grass, Roots and Rocks all had a slight layer of moisture on them. But riders didn’t come down sopping wet. Goggles stayed clear. Shoes weren’t filled to the top with water. It was all the fun parts of the rain, without the miserable parts!

Friday Cat 1 riders got to start out on course, then in the afternoon the Cat 2 riders took over. This was a bit different than what people were used to, but it seemed to work out well. Giving riders time to watch the other category practice, plus ride with people of similar speed on course.

Saturday was, you guessed it, foggy again. This time Cat 2 started out the day. With Cat 1 taking up the afternoon shift. The course started to get some ruts ridden into it and seeding runs began at 3pm!

Cat 1 U16 rider Payton McKeown put down the fastest time in seeding with a 2:29.01! Lilli Regenold took the top spot in seeding for the women with a 3:05.40!

After seeding runs were done, and unnoficial jump jam went down on the new black jump line built by Zenith Trail Contracting! Ski Hut provided hot dogs and swag and people threw down! James even pulled a backflip!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by James McNamara (@jamestheprimate)

Sunday started out as foggy as ever! Cat 3 riders took to practice for the first hour of the morning before dropping in for their race runs! 30 riders came out to race the Cat 3 course, which was awesome to see! Hugh Uphoff had the fastest time of the men with a 1:43.6 and Willow Krawcyk had the fastest female time with a 1:57.9!!

At 11:30, Cat 1 and 2 got to hit the course together for their hour of practice runs. The fog was thick and the wind was whipping, but riders got in their final chances to pick their lines.

At 1:00 riders lined up for their race runs! The fog never let up a bit and it felt like the course had continued to get slicker throughout the day!

Did we mention that about a third of the course was fresh cut? Freshly trimmed grass, no berms, wide tape, line choice, and a couple technical sections gave racers a run for their money!

Rider Zach Day had a rough one at the end of the fresh section. This rock roll caught out a lot of riders all weekend long. There was a short course hold, but luckily we saw Zach up and walking later on.

After a brief course hold and riders got back up to the top for re-runs, the race came to a finish!

After racing was completed awards were handed out!

Ski Hut was kind enough to give out a Reserve wheelset to the fastest person in the fresh section! And there was a tie!!! Ryan Boushee and Payton McKeown tied for the fastest split in the fresh section. In the end, Boushee’s style got him the wheelset!

This race was also the Finale for the Downhill portion of the Lake Superior Gravity Series! We got to see riders take home some big payouts from the year!!

If you weren’t there, you missed out on a great weekend of downhill racing! Thank you to everyone who came out, volunteered and cheered on the racers!! We are so excited that people came out and had fun at the race!

Full results over on the Race Page!

Photos by Dylan Juchemich and Alex Anderson. Words by Alex Anderson.

Check out Alex’s seeding run to get an idea of what the track looked like!

Copper Harbor Trails Fest Race Report

Alex — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 04:01:59 +0000

2025 Copper Harbor Trails Fest was another amazing stop on the Lake Superior Gravity Series schedule.

The weekend was littered with amazing events! Thursday afternoon Trails Club hosted a group ride with a dinner after. It was a beautiful evening and three groups of people went out on the point trail. With well over 50 people joining the ride, it was a super nice way to start the weekend off. If you haven’t checked out the Highlands trail, you should! There is a beautiful overlook and some cool rock features on the way up. The way down has some fun flow and is a fun ride.

Friday the Otter Belly Lodge crew put on a stopwatch race down Thunderbolt! This was a part of their Eric’s Downhill Series this summer. Which was a free to race, afternoon downhill event to promote community and downhill racing! Almost 50 people showed up to take a hot lap down, and it was a blast! Transition bike demo driver Ian took the win for the night!

Saturday race action kicked off for the main Trails Fest events! The XC started off the morning with a bang, while the downhill riders headed up Brockway for some practice laps on Overflow. There might have been some rain earlier in the week, but by the time practice was over it was hard to tell. Corners were loose, the trail was dusty, and some of us sure were happy to have a dry race weekend!! (It’s me, I was very very happy!!)

The Trails Fest downhill race is a best of two run format. So the best of your two runs counts for your race time. The top spots in the men’s field would have looked different if the first run times had been used. Which, at the end of the day, the top 5 men were within 0.8 seconds of each other! Talk about tight racing!! Bode McFadden was able to sneak his way to the top of that battle. The women’s podium was separated by less than 4 seconds! Mara Breeuwer claimed victory over the other ladies!

You may have noticed, this wasn’t the Lake Superior Gravity Series Downhill Finale. It has many years marked the end of the Downhill season, but this year they’re doing something different. They’ve added a Downhill specific weekend to celebrate the end of the series. Go check out the Downhill Midwest race September 12-14 for something a bit different than we’re used to in the Midwest!

Sunday the 10K run took off early in the morning. Then the Enduro started out at East Bluff. Expert enduro got 4 stages at the bluff and they were all fantastic! Thunderbolt and Loam Rider – Eh Horizon may be two of our favorite trails in the Midwest! Plus some Citrus Tech and Whipsaw will make you want to not have to leave the Bluff!

This year riders were allowed to take their vehicles back to the community center in Copper Harbor from East Bluff. This was to help alleviate the congestion out at the Bluff for the rest of the day. After a nice little break racers pedaled up to Overflow for another fast stage! The downhill race course was modified slightly to make it more approachable. The Overflow gap was taped off, and riders skipped over to Flow at Dyno Rocks. Missing The Pants feature. After the downhill race on Saturday, some of the berms were very dusty!

Back up Brockway yet again to get to East Woopidy, and ending with the ever classic Red Trail. A techy, old school singletrack trail with a couple punchy climbs!

If riders took the ride back to Copper Harbor, they ended the day with around 24 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing on the day! Not too shabby!

After all that riding, Mara Breeuwer took the women’s win and Ryan Zinzow took the men’s!

Racers got to end each day with live music, food and a beer garden! What an awesome weekend!

Thanks Copper Harbor Trails Club for another amazing Trails Fest!!

Riding photos by Dylan Juchemich. Podium photos by Copper Harbor Trails Club. Words by Alex Anderson.

Check out Alex’s 4th place run from the Downhill race on Saturday.

Bike Duluth Fest – Race Report

Alex — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:34:01 +0000

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!

Miner’s Revenge Race Report

Alex — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 22:21:59 +0000

The third stop of the Lake Superior Gravity Series, Miner’s Revenge, went down this weekend (7-12) and it was a wet one!!

The forecast for the weekend originally called for rain on Saturday, but if you’re familiar with the area, the forecast is rarely accurate. And it was, kind of accurate this weekend.

Friday riders showed up and the dirt conditions were amazing. A few puddles here and there, but mostly good dirt! Then mother nature wanted to show us what she was made of!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alex Anderson (@alexandersonmtb)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SokeTrails (@soketrails)

The rain came down, hard! Really, hard!

The rain lasted into the night. And by morning the trails took on an entirely different look than they had started with Friday.

Racers were treated to 6 stages of wet, slippery roots, rocks and mud! Racing started at 10am with riders hiking up the infamous ski hill to their first stages. Expert enduro entered the mine for the first stage. 46 degrees, dark and wet. Racers had to navigate through the mine mid race run!

Stage 2 was Lion’s Back. A “tamer” trail with some tight sections, punchy uphills and one off camber rock that caught out a number of racers!

Stage 3 was the Miner’s DH course. Giving riders a little taste of speed for the day! Even a little air time with some of the only jumps of the race.

After a short break to reset the stages, riders dropped into Hunts. The undisputed most technical trail of the day! Riders were nervous that the rain was going to move in prior to this stage. Because with a rock roll to start you off, a slippery/rocky steep, some rooty off camber, this trail really could take you down! Luckily the rain held off and riders were able to tackle the stage with their vision mostly in tact. The rain clouds that were lingering above and the dense tree coverage did make it quite dark in this stage however!

Stage 5 was Scenic Piste. A trail mostly consisting of the open ski run. With grassy wet corners, this trail was short, but certainly caught out a number of riders!

The final stage was Dangerous Curves! Which, coincidentally was in pretty good condition by the time racers got there and many though they had the most confidence on this trail. Maybe they had gotten more accustomed to the conditions, maybe the conditions were better, maybe the curves weren’t as dangerous as they had thought. We may never know!

At the end of the day Kyia Anderson, Mara Breeuwer, and Annett Trebitz rounded out the female podium. While Ryan Zinzow, Alex McTaggart, and Myles Carey filled the men’s podium!

Racers got a couple hour break after the enduro to get some food and water before the downhill began!

Downhill practice began at 4pm. Riders got to ride up the ski hill in pickup trucks. But after seeing one get stuck and the others start to struggle on the very wet uphill, some riders opted to hike up the hill for their runs. It was impressive watching the trucks make it up the very slippery rocks towards the top of the shuttle trail!

The talk of the downhill was the ever growing puddle that was near the top, just after the main rock section of the course. Riders were consistently talking about going above the puddle, below, or through the puddle. But as riders continued to puzzle the puddle, it grew, and grew AND GREW!!! By the time the race began, there was no going around this puddle!

The reason this puddle was such a point of focus for the racers was that it came right before a pretty flat portion of the track. Normally on a dry day, racers can carry speed out of the rocks into that flat section. But with that massive puddle taking any speed you had generated, pedaling that straight section made everyone’s legs burn!

Race format was best of 2 runs, no seeding. Race runs started at 6 for the first runs, with second runs occurring immediately after.

Remember that puddle? You’re correct. It was still the main topic after run number two! Racers were amazed at again, how much more it grew after the first race runs! That many riders hitting the puddle at race pace just continued to grow the beast!

Kyia and Mara stood one and two on the podium again for the day, while Maggie Klein took the third step of the women’s podium.

For the men, Ryan took home first, while Bode McFadden and Michael Noble took the next two spots.

It was a great day of racing with some live music to end the day!

Thanks to the Soke crew and the Adventure Mine for having yet another amazing event!

Amazing photos provided by Dylan!!

Check out Alex’s vlog from the race to see more of the muddy trails!

Marquette Trails Fest Race Report

Alex — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 15:34:23 +0000

This past weekend one of the biggest events in the Midwest transpired. Marquette Trails Festival is a celebration of the amazing trails around Marquette. This weekend saw over 15 events occur in the realm of three days!! There almost isn’t a moment after 3pm Friday that there isn’t at least two events happening simultaneously. It’s an absolute feet of scheduling and volunteering to see this event occur.

Here at Downhill Midwest, we’re going to focus on the gravity style bike events! But know a lot more occurred over the weekend.

Day 1 - Dual Slalom

The weekend kicks off with Dual Slalom action on Friday afternoon. A youth category started the weekend with a bang! Some amazing racing from the youngsters. High speeds and tight times made this event a blast to watch. Payton McKeown was able to walk away victorious, but the battles with the likes of Bryce Rautio, Rowan Garfoot and Mason Timperley had everyone watching!

Youth racers battling it out on course!

Next up was the adult Dual Slalom! With a stacked field of men’s and women’s riders, it was sure to be a treat! Speaking of treats, the Blackrocks van was back handing out beverages, plus Transition Bikes and Quick Stop Bike Shop brought food to be enjoyed by all! They handed out over 300 hot dogs on the day!

Cheese? I thought you meant Hot Dogs?!

Racers tackled the freshly worked course that was running oh so good! NTN volunteers had cleaned up the berms, and even extended the course this year and racers were loving it!

15 women and 31 men participated in the event on a variety of rigs. Dirt jumpers, cross country bikes, enduro bikes, we saw almost every style of bike tackle this awesome course!

In the end, after all the hype, crashes, exciting battles, hot dogs and good times, Ryan Zinzow took the win in the Men’s win and Sam Paternoster took the Women’s win!

Ryan locked in

Day 2 - Enduro

The enduro had a bit of a late start to the day. A thunderstorm had rolled though in the morning. This caused organizer to push start times back by only half an hour. Which after a long night of Dual Slalom, racers weren’t angry about!

That rain did make the morning stages a little slippy in spots though! The morning three stages saw a mix of trails and riders could choose what order they wanted to do them in. On Marquette Mountain riders rode a combo of trails, Starting with fast flow, into slow and tight singletrack, back to a bit of line choice at the bottom! Then over on Benson you could choose the tech of Flow, or the berms of Down Dogger.

Smiling is optional, but sometimes we can’t help ourselves!

After a shortened lunch (due to the rain delay), riders got to tackle the second three stages of the day. In the heat and humidity of the day riders were sopping wet even without riding in the rain! After that morning rain, temps rose to mid 80s and the air sure felt thick!

Phill making moves!

Although riders could go to any stage, most seemed to go towards the furthest away stage first, Burning Stump to Smiley. This stage had a bit of a climb in it, and is otherwise a pretty straight forward flow trail with plenty of pedaling if you wanted it. Then you could choose either Southern Cross to Old Yellow, or the most technical stage Chunder Muffin! With easy access and plenty to watch, spectators lined the bottom of Chunder Muffin to enjoy what I’m certain was a lot of excitement!

Aleautian giving the people a show!

In the end, Moses Waite was able to top Ryan Zinzow for the men’s win! While Lilli Regenold (U16 rider!) took the win over Kyia Anderson for the women!

Day 3 - Downhill

If you and your bike made it this far, it’s finally Sunday, Downhill day baby!!

Of course we raced the Marquette classic, Gypsum! But this year, Phill Ott thought we ought to switch up the rock garden. Instead of the classic straight line down the rocks, this year we did a little zig, a little zag! Found some fresh off camber that changed throughout the day and it had riders puzzling.

Make the treacherous left corner!

Above the off camber the trail crew had made some changes to the trail that riders loved. Some of the flat sections that were difficult to hold speed through, and created a lot of pedaling, had been buffed a bit and were flowing so nicely for the racers! Plus the moisture the day before really helped set up the dirt well for race day.

Ride the off camber!

With new taping came new line choice. Coming into the rock garden you could snake high between some very tight trees, or you could dive low and hop your way over some roots to get back into the line. A right hander started the drop into the rocks. Here you could choose left or right. Left keeping you more planted and controlled, right having a big rock you could jump off of and straightening out the next left hander. The left hander gave people a lot of issues. Come in too fast and you dropped the off camber to the bottom, or maybe you went into the tree that divided the lines. You really needed to be patient here. Finally the fresh off camber. Roots started to show up in the high line and the high line kept creeping its way lower and lower. Riders had to navigate this mid race run! Showing up and the line had moved made riders make choices on the fly!

In the end, it was great to spectate the new taping, and it seemed most of the riders enjoyed it as well!

Try not to crash!

Lilli Regenold took the win for the women’s division. She was almost able to sweep the weekend! Next year she just needs the Dual Slalom win as well and she’ll have all three!

Ryan Zinzow came out swinging after coming in second for the Enduro. His seeding time was 3 seconds faster than the next rider, and even with going offline in the rock garden he was able to go a second faster than that! Taking the win and almost breaking the two minute mark with a 2:01. Will anyone break the two minute mark on this trail next year??

Ryan’s thoughts “That sure is a nice looking tree….”

Check out Alex’s 5th place run on the downhill course!

Thanks!!

Thank you to the organizers and volunteers for putting on another amazing event!

Thank you to all the racers and spectators for coming out and making these events so fun to be at!

Thank you Dylan for all the cool photos you see in this article. Check out his website for more photos as he gets through editing them.

Yes. That is hot dog water….

Story written by Alex Anderson of Lake Superior Gravity Series

Descend Crew Shreds Gypsum

Alex — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 02:36:46 +0000

Jack Duarte captures the Descend racing crew as they take on Gypsum during the Marquette Trails Fest Downhill Race!!

Keep on ripping!!

Mille Hill Enduro Race Report

Alex — Mon, 16 Jun 2025 02:23:14 +0000

The 2025 Mille Hill Enduro in Iron Mountain Michigan went down on Sunday June 8th! Not only did the race go down, but the rain also came down!

Before the racing occurred, riders got to come out and enjoy the Section 30 Jump Jam! Saturday afternoon riders came out to hop around on the fun jumps at the base of the hill!

Racers woke up to what looked like amazing weather! That was until about half an hour before race time. The rain then showed up in force! It decided to rain for about the first 4 stages of the morning. Making for some very, very wet stages!

The first few stages were on what seemed to be relatively fresh trails, and that dirt was flying after the rain soaked in!

After the rain stopped, the trails really performed well! Riders in the expert category were treated to 9 timed stages. For many, a timing snafu got them to end up doing 10 runs on the day!

There were smiles all around after the stages were done! Unfortunately the timing issues continued, and results were unknown at the end of the day. By Monday they got the results figured out and they are below for the advanced category!

Congrats to all the racers! Thanks to the organizers and volunteers for putting on a fun event!!

For more photos from Dylan, head to his SmugMug page where you can buy your photos!

Check out the video below for POV runs from Alex following Myles down the stages!

Ride the Keweenaw Race Report

Alex — Thu, 29 May 2025 19:34:25 +0000

The 2025 Lake Superior Gravity Series kicked off this last weekend with Ride the Keweenaw up in Copper Harbor Michigan!

If you don’t recall the conditions last year, go check out the Race Report from 2024 to remind yourself of the mudfest!

2025 was almost the exact opposite conditions! Sticking to Copper Harbor proper for 2025, racers saw dusty spring conditions! That’s right, DUST!

We didn’t hear of too many people complaining about some dry conditions after last year though!

The course did have a lot more mid stage pedaling than 2024! Which is the nature of Copper Harbor proper. The trails don’t have the overall grade the way the East Bluff trails do. It’s nice to have a switch up between Ride the Keweenaw and Copper Harbor Trails Fest. Otherwise there would be two of the almost exact same races in a summer.

Are you pumping or jumping this roller? Do you jump when you see Dylan out on course?

Racers in the expert category were treated to a 4 stage race this year. Starting with West Woopidy, riders really got to burn in those legs to start.

A quick transfer up and riders saw the classic Red Trail! With some fun tech, few punchy climbs, and interesting trail features, this stage really tested your bike handling ablities!

Riders then got to glide back down through the visitor center, grab some water and maybe a snack if needed, then right back up to the top of Brockway! Stage 3 saw riders dropping into the top of the downhill course, Overflow. But then jumping off onto flow at “kissing berms” before eventually ending with Daisy Dukes. You got a mix of fast flow up top, pedaling traverses in the middle, and finishing off with a little flow at the bottom. With all that said and done, this was the longest stage of the day!

Even after that long stage, riders found reasons to smile! Some because of riding bikes with family and friends! Others, because they found some much needed hydration before the final stage!

Then finally, after another pedal up to the top of Brockway, riders got to finish their day off with East Woopidy.

Which very easily was the least pedally stage of the day! A welcome relief to finish off with.

After racing was done, riders got treated to hot dogs and snacks from Transition’s resident DirtBag. And a game of footdown ensued for riders to get a chance to win some Deity swag!

The women’s field saw some tight racing at the top! With only 6 seconds separating first and second place after 17 minutes of racing! In the end Kyia Anderson was able to edge out Mara Breeuwer to take the win!

The men’s field had a different story. Alex Mctaggart won every single stage of the day, and put 24 seconds into second place! An amazing showing by Alex this weekend!

Thanks to the Copper Harbor Trails Club for putting on another fun race weekend!

The next LSGS event is June 20th – 22nd at the Marquette Trails Fest!

If you want to see what the courses looked like, below is Alex Anderson’s raw laps from his race.