A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Mountain bikers take off at the start of the 4.6-mile trail bike race at Pine Valley Sunday. Photos contributed by Melanie Leno
Young Winston Leno, 5, runs in the family fun race Saturday, followed by his dad, Jeff Leno, who took second place in the much longer duathlon Sunday.
Tom and Kelly Anderson pose for a photo after Sunday's duathlon. Tom was the overall winner of the combined 4.6-mile trail bike and 5.5K run, finishing in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 58 seconds.
Supported by many spectators, a grand total of 42 people from Cloquet, Esko, Carlton and that big city to the east, Duluth, ran in the first Pine Valley Bike, Run, Family Fun series of races at Pine Valley on Sunday, Aug. 11. The event consisted of a duathlon (two loops biking on the 2.3-mile single track bike trail and one loop running on the 5.5-kilometer ski trail), a bike-only race, and a run-only race. Many of the bikers were middle-school and high-school students from the Cloquet-Esko-Carlton Mountain Bike Club.
"Mountain biking and mountain biking competition is a rapidly growing sport that has mushroomed in recent years," said organizer Tim Krohn, adding that the new course at Pine Valley, "though short by mountain biking standards, is challenging in its hill climb and descent. It also has plenty of small rolling bumps to make the level areas fun and interesting."
He added that most of the participants hung out after their event to watch others finish and to feast on brats and chips.
This event was a fundraiser to extend the new Pine Valley Mountain Bike Trail from the current 2.3 miles to the planned 5 miles. The budget for the planned extension is $125,000 and so far, a dedicated group of local volunteers, including Krohn, have raised more than $89,000 in grants, donations and event proceeds. Sunday's event raised approximately $1,200.
That leaves $36,000 left to be raised.
"The goal of this fundraising effort is to raise as much money as possible in order to minimize impact on Cloquet taxpayers," Krohn said.
Tom Anderson, age 50, was the overall winner of the combined 4.6-mile trail bike and 5.5K run, finishing in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 58 seconds. Jeff Leno, 36, took second in 2:7:19 and Suzanne Schuller, 42, took third in 2:10:52.
Zeb Wehr, 17, took first place in the bike-only race, in a time of 1:2:46, followed by Johnette Ostlund, 16, in 1:3:30 and Hunter Williams, 15, in 1:3:36.
The top three in the run-only 5.5K race were Lauren Staen, 20, Jeff Krohn, 38, and Lucye Bacstrom, age 10.
Next up at Pine Valley are the 20K Lost Forester adventure race and Pine Valley 5.5K and 11K runs on Labor Day. Find out more at https://www.blue-house.org/lost-forester.html or on the "The Lost Forester Adventure Run" Facebook page.
