Last weekend, I got to visit something new that I have never gotten to see in all of my time up north. I got to see my first Chequamegon, a 40 mile long bike race. You might think that I'm going a bit off topic with sports, but I'm not. There were professional bikers in this race too. It's one to qualify for next season without having to go through an intense qualification. The top finisher also gets $350,000.
What is it?
The Chequamegon is a popular, world-class off-road cycling race that is America’s largest point-to-point race. It is 40 miles, going from Hayward to Cable. Mountain bikers from 13 countries and 41 states came to the 43rd annual Chequamegon. The total count was over 2,500 riders. It is for mountain biking, I even saw a couple fat tire bikes doing it as well. It was first held in 1983, and it is famous for elite and pro racers. Plus, at the end, there is always a party filled with food trucks.
What's the track like?
The Chequamegon track is an off-road course that goes from normal bike trails to Birkiebringer ski trails. So basically big grass routes surrounded by trees, hills, and much wildlife. Hills are also really common in this race. It also has one of the hardest hills to climb in the race, the Seely Fire Tower. While I myself have not seen it in person, I have heard stories about it from friends. It is about a 1-2 mile climb uphill. Since it is really steep, most people just walk their bikes up it. It’s perfectly normal for folks who just came to race and have fun, unless you are a pro biker that will climb that hill easily.
My experience
Overall, I thought that the whole experience was really cool! It started at my friend's new building, where I got to watch from the balcony the start of the race. It was not open to the public just yet, so I got lucky because I knew the people. There were a lot of people doing it, to me it looked like over five hundred people were doing it. Moments later, I had to drive to the finish line, where all the fun began to start. We got a VIP spot instead of an old parking spot. I had wanted to walk around and look at all the bike booths and food trucks, but I had to go and find a spot first. It wasn’t until the clock showed 2:45 as the finish time that I saw the first person. They were flying down the hill and then skidded to a stop after the finish line. One of the bikers wore a USA basketball jersey which was so brown you could not even tell if it was white! I bet he had a hard time getting that clean. When the pros began to finish, it got intense. Three or four would shoot down the hill trying to break ahead of the others. I had almost thought that one would crash because of how fast their bike was going. (No one did though, well not that I know of). Afterwards, we drove back to my cabin where we had pizza and chilled the rest of the evening.