Up North: Mountain bikers shred new trail in Chisholm

Well before the snow falls to the ground, and blankets the great outdoors, middle and high school mountain bikers took to the trails, and headed to Chisholm, for a Minnesota Cycling Association (MCA) race.

The Redhead Mountain bike park welcomed MCA racers and their families to camp on site throughout this past weekend for race #6 on the new track at Redhead.

"Obviously your mountain biking, but you kind of race with people your same grade. Right now varsity girls are going by so its going to be your older more experienced girls, and basically just compete with people in you field and depending on where you place you can score points for your team and help boost yourselves up in the leader board" Duluth Composite team member Bodee Mcfadden exclaimed.

Bikers were able to discover this totally brand-new race venue, which consisted of a 3.8 Mile trail. The trail has been carved from the walls of an abandoned water-filled mine pit. Bodde and his teammates had this to say about the trail,

"This one is supper fun, its a lot more rocky and technical than a bunch of the other courses we have had in the season. However this is one of the more flatter courses, such as our last race of the season our state championship in Mankato, we go straight up Mankato the ski hill. That’s pretty rough while here the hills are very gentile in comparison".

For a sport that doesn’t get much press, Course Marshal Michelle Palmer says mountain bike racing has been going on for almost a decade up north, and continues to grow.

"So Minnesota has been in it for roughly 10 years. Its still fairly new to a lot of states, in fact the girl participation is trying to get to 23 percent in every team. Its getting closer every year our team has 30% so its definetely getting there".

With the sport getting more attention, and beautiful trails like this one popping up all over the state, Michelle also encourages new bikers to take part.

"I would say give it a shot, give it a try if you have a local team and if you don’t, find a bike shop and they will help you find a local team and see if someone will take you out for a ride".