Sugar Creek

[Kiecker]

There's a 12 hour race this Saturday (May 7th) at Sugar Creek (I know same weekend as Erik's....still debating). Does anyone know what the trail hours are of Sugar Creek. If I go I'd like to go down Friday afternoon and get a loop in before having to race it the next day. Any idea how the current trail conditions are?

btw, anyone else thinking about going??

[martini]

Hehe, Yeah, I know. I built(ok helped buld) the trail there. It's 4.2 miles long. One ass buster of a climb, and sweet sweet singletrack sections that will have you grinning ear to ear. If there's one thing that's wrong with this course, its that its too short. And we're planning on changing that...

We'll be there on Friday afternoon/evening marking the course(its pretty easy to follow), and then camping the night away, sitting by the fire drinking and making fun of the racers. :) I'd say conditions of the trail right now are pretty close to ideal. Tacky goodness for sure. Weather looks to be about perfect, mid 70's, mostly to partly cloudy. Should be a verrry good day to ride all day.

We welcome any and all who plan on attending, I know it conflicts w/Buck, but there are folks out there that would be interested in this too. Hell, I'm hoping some folks will just come down to ride this trail so we can really get it established. I'm also hoping to scout more terrain for expanding what we have already too. Sean, Mark, Pat? You guys should head on down!

The trails are located at the Sugar Creek Bible Camp, and as such there are very few days that this trail is open to ride. Saturday happens to be one of them. Well, and Friday for those who want to do a warm up lap or two..or three. We're trying to talk our way into allowing more use, but they're coming into thier peak season, and they dont' want impressionable young Lutherans to be courted by fun loving MTBer's.

[martini]

Here's a trail map of the course we'll be using. Hope some of you Minnesota folk can make it.

http://www.morcmtb.org/photopost/data/518/79sugarcreeknet.jpg

[Kiecker]

Looks like they are forcasting rain and thunderstorms on Friday and Saturday. Any idea when we'll know if the race will be called? I have no idea how well that area drys out.

[martini]

Intellicast ( http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USLocalStd.asp?loc=uswict26699&seg=LocalWeather&prodgrp=Forecasts&product=Forecast&prodnav=none&pid=none ) is calling for possible scattered t-storms. Nothing I'd worry about. The trails should drain pretty well. We've got a high limstone content to the soil and bedrock. So if it does in fact rain, it shouldn't be much of a problem.

[flea]

What is the location of this trail? I'm not familiar.

[martini]

Its six miles east of Ferryville WI. Which is about 25 miles south of La Crosse WI. We had a great day for a race. It dawned cloudy and warm, and we had a shower for about an hour from 10 to 11. Other'n that the day was perfect. THe sun broke out for the afternoon and warmed us all up, and dried out the trail. By the end of the day, everything was in perfect condition. Its a bummer that not too many folks showed up. They missed a good one! I'll post a few pics after I get batteries for the camera charged up. In the mean time, here's a map.

[Kiecker]

Driving down on Saturday for the 6 hour I came across tons of rain north Rochester. I was a bit worried but after a phone call found out there was going to be some rain but the race would go on rain or shine. I'm glad I kept going. Turns out Sugar Creek only had some sprinkles for about an hour :banana:. The hill climb is difficult but the single track was technical with some flow which led to a good day. Cool fun crowd there too. Glad I went. Thanks!!

[martini]

so who were you? Me? The guy on the Hunter, one of the many 29"er's in attendance. I'm glad you made the ride down. We're talking to the land owners about letting us(me) out there all summer to build more singletrack. The plan is to have 1½ to 2 more miles of trail for next year.

[Kiecker]

I was on a geared Stumpjumper in a black/white/gray Q jersey. Finished 3rd in the 6 hour solo. It was cool to see Marty from Gnomefest too.

The extra distance would be nice...especially for those 12 hour riders. Any chance for a chair lift, tram, or esculator too?

Probably the best part about the event aside from the people is that I didn't have to smell myself for the return car trip. Available showers at races rock!

[martini]

Thought that was you. We got lots of requests for the escalator. It was kinda funny, the 3 hour guys were all complaining about the climb, and all the 12 hour guys were adamant that we NOT take it out.