With no snow at the Yellowknife Ski Club, what does one do with the empty trails? You hold mountain bike races, that's what.
James McCarthy/NNSL photo
The Yellowknife Multisport Club was back in action this past weekend as it hosted the Midnight Sun Mudfling on Sunday in conjunction with the Yellowknife Mountain Bike Club. Close to 20 competitors hit the ski club's snowless trails in rather muddy conditions and there was plenty of mess.
The open men's division saw by far the largest turnout and when all was said and done, Paul Green crossed the finish line first in a time of 51 minutes, 40.9 seconds, beating out his son, Tyson Green, by nearly 15 minutes.
One thing you'll notice about Green's time is how consistent he was on all five of his laps as he barely took over 10 minutes to complete each loop.
“It was a good outing and I'm happy with how I did,” said Green. “It was a consistent ride all the way.”
The open men's division was a 15-km race, consisting of five laps of a 3-km course which featured plenty of standing water that the riders had to negotiate.
Green said it was more wet on the course than muddy.
“Most of the water was in the marshy sections and there were a few sections of the course where you had to get off and drag through,” he said. “It was the same for everyone. No one had any sort of advantage.”
There were women's divisions as well, which included the open women's category. Shannon Jennings won that race in a time of one hour, 22 minutes, 7 seconds while Dinah Elliott was the recreational women's winner in a time of 55 minutes, 37.1 seconds.
This race was the second official one under the mountain bike club's umbrella and Jeff Foster, the mountain bike club's president, said the multisport club has been a great partner to have, especially in terms of insurance.
“Insurance is expensive and so is running races so the more community groups can come together, the better for everyone,” he said.
The plan for the mountain bike club is to do four races a year when it's in full tilt. The next race hasn't yet been finalized yet, though.
But for this past race, Foster said the conditions couldn't have been more conducive to mountain biking.
“A few less bugs would have been nice,” joked Foster. “Gary (Tait, race organizer) did a real good job with the course. We got to ride it a couple of weeks ago for a group ride, which gave people who weren't signed up a chance to gauge the difficulty of it if they decided they wanted to sign up. It was a good little technical challenge with some downhill bits but it's all part of the fun.”
Green is definitely hopeful there will be some more mountain bike races in Yellowknife in the near future, something he said is already established in Whitehorse.
“Whitehorse has a great group of mountain bikers organized over there,” he said. “There's definitely a gap when it comes to this in the sports world and the mountain bike club here in town has done a great job already. I'd like to see more of it going on, for sure.”
Midnight Sun Mudfling results
Open women
1st – Shannon Jennings, 1:22:07.0
2nd – Jocelyn Apps, 1:26:33.4
Recreational women
1st – Dinah Elliott, 55:37.1
2nd – Amanda Watson, 56:04.3
3rd – Naomi Smethurst, 1:03:10.8
Open men's
1st – Paul Green, 51:40.9
2nd – Tyson Green, 1:04:53.0
3rd – Julian Kanigan, 1:07:18.5
source: Zone 4