27 Years of Racing

This years marks the 27th year I've raced mountain bikes. A few years I had Lyme I didn't wave the flag much. The past few years have been doing a handful of races, including six this year, three enduros and three cross country races in the Minnesota Mountain Bike Series (MNMBS).  Family activities comes first and those schedules dictate what races I will sneak away to. Plus the motivation to travel up to 10 hours a day when going to the race day of isn't like is used to be.  To continue to race at the Expert level takes a lot of detailed specific training, for me anyways. Some days I ride hard because that is fun to and Strava has added an element of challenge not available before.  Bottom line, I just love to ride my bike so I don't really "train", just ride enjoy the challenge and exhilaration of mountain biking.

 Tuesday night time trial at Maplelag. One lap, around 45 minutes all out effort. Personally I would love to be doing 45-60 minute mtb races versus the 2 hour expert races. Tests the skill set and not totally gassed at the end like a marathon race yet takes some fitness. The opposite is happening in the race scene though with long distance racing more popular. All good, thanks again Strava.

 The last cross country race was at Cuyuna. Was more like a marathon race with 2 1/2 hour race times. With junior riders racing expert, this is too long. Longer races don't make you fast, they make you slower. This is opinion after watching results and riders the past 30 years at both the local and national level. An exception to this is Jeff Hall, of course. A good way to check lap times is to have area fast guys pre-ride and get an idea what the times would be like. The Cuyuna folks wouldn't have to look to far to check with Sam Elson and 15 year old Braedon Anderson who is scary fast for his age.

 The weekend before was a cross country race at Spirit Mountain. Long time mountain biker friend Scott Kylander Johnson and is wife Sara along with fellow Duluthonians worked up a course that was  a pure of a cross country course you could get. Old school tech singletrack, a little bit of flow trail, fall line climbing and descending and some rocky singletrack to test the skill set. One of the first races I did was at Spirit Mountain the earlier races there was as good as it gets. With the development of the alpine slide and purpose built trail at Spirit Mountain, it is impossible to have a course like it was but Scott and go did a awesome job creating a course as good as it could be. Scott is a racer himself and kept in mind all race categories and left the ego out.

 The third Enduro I did was at Brewer Park which had a combination of super tight and techy singletrack and fast flow trail A perfect enduro. Couldn't understand why people were complaining about it. Enduro isn't all downhill. A combination of mostly downhill but some climbing mixed in.

27 years ago Jake wasn't even born. I didn't own a cell phone and there weren't digital cameras. That could make me feel old, racing mountain bikes makes me feel young. Keep the wheels moving.