Minnesota Fixed Gear Classic

The Nature Valley Bicycling Festival is made up of the Nature Valley Stage Race and the Minnesota Fixed Gear Classic. The past three days I've been racing the velodrome in the MN Fixed Gear Classic.

If you have never raced this track, you are missing out. 250m wood @ 43 degrees and it may just be as smooth as ADT. Seriously, it's the nicest outdoor track in the country. And the people here are what is called "Minnesota nice."

There was both an endurance omnium and a sprint omnium. I decided to tackle both of them and race every event offered. What started as a crazy idea turned ridiculous when Saturday was rained out and they made Sunday 1 HUGE day of racing... it was like a 2 for 1 special.

So, Friday:

1st in Sprints (this was my first 200m tt since Nationals... racing or training... I felt pretty good about the way my new endurance training has really helped my sprinting. Go figure!)

1st in Miss-and-Out

2nd 60 lap Points Race

Sunday:

1st in Keirin

1st in Scratch Race

1st in Team Sprint

1st in Madison Kilo

1st in Handicap

1st in 60 lap Points Race

2nd in Tempo

Sprint Omnium Podium

Endurance Omnium Podium

For the men's racing, there were two big stories both coming from the young boys.

Colten Barrett, age 19, gained huge respect from the stacked field (some pretty big names out here) by winning the Endurance Omnium in a demanding fashion. Watch this name!!
Matt Baranoski, age 17, took control and landed himself at the top of the podium for the Sprint Omnium. Very impressive! Another one to watch.
Full results listed here.

Not only was the racing SOOO well run but the weekend was SOOO fun. (I'm laughing that I am SOOO brain dead that they only vocabulary I can come up with to emphasize and get my point across is the word "so" written in capitals and with extra "ooo". I feel like I am pulling from the 10 year-old dictionary right now.)

Anyway, I digressed.

The people here make this race... from beginning to end. From helping to arrange transportation to providing food for racers to just being respectful to athletes, they go out of their way.

A cool side note- we had 12 people from Colorado make the journey to race the MN Fixed Gear Classic. Represent!!

Photography: Lisa Lardy/Lardy Photography