Red Wing’s Memorial Park MTB Trails: optional gravity riding that I can’t (yet) do

Matthew Iatonna,  Clay HaglundI finally made it over to the Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails in Red Wing two weeks ago, only the second time I’ve ridden there (May, 2012 was the first).  The Red Wing Area Mountain Bike Organization (RAMBO) has done quite a bit of work on their downhill runs lately and last fall’s Upper Midwest Gravity Summit 2012 brought more attention to the gravity riding that the park offers, including this video from the that weekend:

httpv://youtu.be/66Qj0Enqf4Y

kiosk, Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails kiosk, Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails kiosk, Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails

I met Clay Haglund (MAMB) and Matthew Iatonna (Menomonie) at the recently renovated trailhead (lower quarry) which has a huge kiosk showing the trails for hiking and mountain biking.

Red Wing Memorial Park MTB Trails - downhill map Clay Haglund's broken frame

The RAMBO website has a Google map of the Memorial Park mtb trails, the most detailed Google map of a trail system that I’ve ever seen. (Some mountain biker at Red Wing Software knows their stuff.) The screenshot above links to the new downhill portion of the map. Unfortunately, Clay snapped his frame on his first DH run and had to hike his bike back.

DH jump, Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails DH jump, Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails DH jump, Memorial Park Mountain Bike Trails

Matthew and I, both on hardtail 29’ers, took it easy on the DH stuff.  I only took photos of this jump, site of the crash in the video above (at the 8:05 mark). I’m not sure I’d attempt it on a hardtail. Nearly all the DH runs can be rolled, making them fun for me to ride. The hike-a-bike back up is not for the faint of heart, however.

Chris Heinemann, Griff WigleyAfter Matthew departed, I met up with Chris Heinemann, a Red Wing local who’s also the Director of Community Planning and Development here in Northfield.

Chris and I rode all but the DH trails and he nearly cleaned the Stairway to Heaven (his lungs gave out). My lungs gave out three times before I got to the top.  Here’s a video by Red Wing mtb racer Marcus Warrington that shows why it’s so tough:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZnn59AaB24

By day’s end, I was pooped, but came away A) very impressed with how fun and challenging (lots of climbing) Red Wing’s XC/singletrack trails are; and B) inspired to learn the gravity skills necessary to have fun on their DH trails. I have a ways to go.

Update Nov. 18: Allen  Geckner sent me some photos of him and Trevor Crawford on the DH runs at Red Wing on Saturday.  See, this is what I want to be able to do. Piece o’ cake for a young geezer, right?

Trevor Crawford Allen Geckner

4 Comments

  1. Clay Haglund said:

    Did you recognize I was in the DH video from the summit too Griff? I had some unfortunate luck that day too. You can see the guy with the camera ride by me [blue MORC shirt] shortly after he set off down the trail. I’d been trying to run ghetto tubeless after all the flats I had last year, and the tire burped in one of those first corners with speed. I had to put in a tube, which I then blew [pinch flat] as I finished the first run down. A Redwing rider rode home quick and grabbed a spare tube and tire to save the day for me. I got 5 runs in that day and I thought I could trust my bike to hold up after that beating. 😛

    November 17, 2013
  2. Randy said:

    These would be considered high speed buff flow trails. The few berms and “jumps” are good additions but would not be consider technical or advanced.

    November 17, 2013
  3. Griff Wigley said:

    I did see you in the video, Clay, but I had no idea that that happened. With your history, I’m going to have to think twice about going riding with you. 😉

    November 18, 2013
  4. Griff Wigley said:

    Randy, that’s a good point. I’ve got no basis to judge what’s advanced or not when it comes to gravity riding so I’ve removed that word from the title of the blog post and the body of the text. Thanks for the feedback.

    November 18, 2013

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