Nordic Mountain... A rocky protrusion emerging from the flat sandy terrain of Central Wisconsin, has been a mainstay of the NICA series since the League's inception. On it's own, the course presents one of the most technically demanding settings for our race series, and this year was no exception. The suffer factor was amplified this year with oppressive heat and humidity coupled with the worst plague of mosquitoes most of us had ever seen before.
Just two years ago, this very same venue had us waking up from our camping slumber to fresh snow on the ground and a chilly race weekend. This time around, the mosquitoes and heat turned an already challenging course into a war of attrition. Every rider that made it through the weekend and tackled that course was a champion of perseverance.
The race course divides itself into two very distinct halves, with a relatively flat rollout quickly leading into a long section of flowy, sandy singletrack through a pine forest. The midpoint of the race sends the riders up a lush fern gully and then weaving across a rocky and rooty ski slope, switching back and forth over the hills.
Many of our experienced racers, used their familiarity with this course to greatly improve on previous performances, but managing heat and hydration issues pushed all the riders to the limit. The podiums were very solidly represented by Hounds with Nick winning the Freshman race again, David finishing 5th in the JV2 race, Charlie D. & Isak taking 3rd and 4th in the JV3 race and Eli once again finishing 5th in the Varsity race (just one day aftern an equally impressive performance at the muddy Short & Fat Mountain Bike Race up in Cable). Special congratulations are also in order for Javi, who conquered his first mountain bike race in such challenging conditions!
In the Team Competition, the Hounds improved on their previous performance and took the win in the Division 1 field, also taking over first place for the overall series. With the challenge level ramped up, this team rallied and put together a remarkable weekend of racing. Once again, congratulations are in order for the whole team and our support crew. See below for the detailed race results and photos from the event...
