Waving the Flag-Maplelag Spring Opener

Maplelag hosted a early season race to celebrate Jake graduating from high school. A good number of team members hitting the Maplelag course for pretty much perfect riding conditions. Always a great day to ride and race with team members. Great job to everyone waving the flag so nicely. Big thanks to Bruce at skinnyski.com for photos. Click here for photos and results.

 Jens heading out with cousins Grant and Garrett. Cole Johnson in the mix waving Lag shorts.

 

 Jake weaving through the trees.

 Jeff Beck

 Greg Ames

 Matt Wenzel. Mat also graduating this year. Congrats Matt!!

 Matt Engen threading the needle through the trees.

 Ben Wenzel waving one of the early team jerseys.

 Steve Wenzel rolling through.

 Berm action on last section of singletrack.

 Tony Schmitz rolling lakeside.

 

Denny Barry rolling off the start. 

 

 Thad Schulz lakeside. 

 

Ian Fritz hitting the home stretch.

Tom Heilman climbing lakeside.

 

Shreddin' the Lag with the Dog... Carlos putting in a good day with 13 miles plus all out effort.

Keep the wheels moving!

Freewheel Frolic at Afton

 The Minnesota Mountain Bike Series (MNMBS) kicked off last weekend with the opening race testing riders on the slopes of Afton Alps. A good representation by the team in various categories and age groups with Wyatt and Devon Horner, Thad Schulz, Jordan and Andrea Horner, Greg Ames, Eric Oftedahl and Corey Coogan Cisek dicing it up in the challenging course. Click here for full results. Skinnyski photos.


Denny Barry off the start.

 Jordan Horner descending.

 Andrea Horner grinding to a first place overall female in Sport.

 Devon Horner making the big jump to Citizen

 

Paul Cullen racing the "ScratchGravel" race in Montana last weekend.

Great job to everyone....keep the wheels moving!!

Burleigh County Cup

Team members Steve Wenzel and Matt Engen were back in action on the endurance side of things representing the team nicely in central North Dakota. Steve recaps the event:

The Burleigh County Cup, North Dakota's premier all gravel road event was held Saturday, May 12th.  Starting in Eagle Park just north of Bismarck, the 50 plus riders rolled out in perfect ND weather.  The options were to ride the 35 mile "Sippy Cup" or the 75 mile "Burleigh County Cup".

I know it is hilly out in this part of ND and it did not disappoint.  We made our way out of the Missouri River Valley and headed out to the beautiful rolling hill prairies smack dab in the middle of the state.  One of the cool things about these gravel road events is that you have to pay attention to your location the whole event or you will miss a turn and go off course - the BCC was well mapped and calibrated with my GPS throughout the ride.

 

In total, 4200 feet of elevation climbed.  All the gravel roads were well groomed with minimal traffic.  The 8 miles of two track section road was a nice mix in the middle of the course.

The BCC crew did an outstanding job of organizing and pulling this inaugural  event off.  I highly recommend sending your post card in next year.  Who knows what they will throw at us on a yearly basis as the options seem to be endless.

Riding Mary Yellowhead

Saturday Lars, Jake and I rode from Maplelag to Mary Yellowhead (MYH). MYH is a area just west of the Tamarac Wildlife Refuge. The MYH road is a gravel road which provides access to MYH trail. Off of MYH trail are numerous atv trails that are neither marked or found on any map. I was first introduced to the trails from early team rider Chris Ziegler who lives a few miles away from the trail. The quad trail riding is fun riding with great terrain. There is some good flow and makes for nice deep woods riding. There are a lot of trails to be explored. Just ride until they come back to the road or dead end.

 

Riding down the MYH road.

MYH trail

 Climbing one of the longer hills on MYH trail. Fast fire road riding.

 Jake climbing one of the hills on the quad trails.

 Jake and Lars weaving through the quad trail.

 Taking a break before heading back. A nice 30 mile out and back ride. Mixed it up a little at the end, coming through the Sugarbush trails and riding the Maplelag ski trails to the north.

Paceline on hiway 34. Pavement riding for about half mile. If you would like more information about riding the Mary Yellowhead, please drop a note. jrichard@arvig.net

Keep the wheels moving!

Early Mountain Riding

 Denny Barry recently took a trip out west to hook up with former MN resident and team rider Paul Cullen for some early season riding in the foothills of Helena area and provided a few photos from the trip.

Keep the wheels moving!

END-SPAR

Steve Wenzel along with fellow team rider, Matt Engen, went north to take on the challenges laid forth by Extreme Adventure racing of North Dakota to compete in the  Extreme North Dakota Spring Primer Adventure Race  Steve provides a nice recap:

The third annual END-SPAR (Extreme North Dakota Spring Primer Adventure Race) event was held at Turtle River State Park, 20 miles west of Grand Forks, ND Saturday, April 28th.  I had participated in a couple of Swamp Donkey Adventure races up in Canada in years past and was intrigued by the close location and getting out and doing something different.

The weather could not have been better - overcast and cool with a strong south east wind.  Fellow Team Maplelag member Matt Engen joined me in the 2 person open category. 

With the course maps freshly distributed along with our check point punch cards the adventure was on.  6 mandatory check points were required and all were to be found in the beautiful Turtle River State Park.  I am sure that we hit every corner of the park at least once not to mention crossing the Turtle River a half a dozen times.  All 6 check points accomplished and our next goal was to grab the optional points along the "river walk".  This task consisted of hiking or running along the Turtle River looking for 3 locations which require an identification punch.  Grab all three and you get 3 points.

After checking in again Matt and I were on our bikes heading to the small town of Larimore, ND.  Speed helps, but in the end getting as many of the 15 optional points in the time allotted is the most important.

In Larimore, we tried everything we could except for the raft section which was 3 points lost.  We did navigate the wilderness around Larimore for 3 difficult check points and bagged them all.  The organizers threw in a couple of crazy obstacles that required patience and skill - a hike a bike down to the lake and back that was extremely hard, building a fire with 3 matches and a cotton ball covered in petroleum (Matt and I failed this task) and a bear bag skill that required our back packs to hang from a tree as if we were in the wilderness to keep the bears from our gear.  All were well thought out and interesting to try.

Being bikers, pushing the wind 10 miles back to the park was perfect for Matt and I.  We grabbed all of the check points to and from with no troubles.

Back at the park, 5 hours into the allotted 6.5 hour event we still had 3 check points that were to be found while riding our mountain bikes.  Matt is good with a map and we found all three and returned to the start/finish just in time.

Of the 15 possible check points, Matt and I finished with 11.  1 lost for failing the fire test and 3 for skipping the boat section.  In speaking with the other racers, it seemed that if you did the boat section you were limited in time to get the trekking points.  So, Matt and I missed the boat, but grabbed the majority of the points.

6.5 hours of non-stop movement in beautiful ND.  Lots of slogging through the woods, rivers, swamps and sand - most excellent adventure!

Steve and Matt checking out the map. Nicely done guys!