Last weekend we headed to the far north to do our second gravel race of the season, the Le Grand du Nord 50 mile. My wife has participated in this event in the past, and I decided to give it a shot this year as it traverses some of the most beautiful landscape in the state.

We headed out at noon on Friday to make the 4.5+ hour drive to Grand Marais, MN. Thankfully, there was only one traffic snarl on the way up due to construction and single lanes around Hinckley. We had a spot reserved at the municipal campground right near downtown, and right on the shore of Lake Superior. We got our van settled for the evening and then walked over to packet pickup, and some dinner, at Voyageur Brewing.

Of course as often happens with big events like this (with a relatively small bike community) it’s common to run into people you know. That aspect became a theme for the weekend with us never being able to get too far in town without bumping into someone. Hilariously, after the race it took us an hour to walk the short walk back to town for food and beer because we kept stopping to chat with people. A few of whom weren’t even in town for the race but just visiting the area!

Social logistics aside the race itself is very straight forward. You leave town and head straight up. For 25 miles. That’s just the nature of the beast when you start and end in a lake-side town next to the Sawtooth Mountains. Granted a 1200 foot difference doesn’t sound like much to our mountain dwelling friends, but around here that’s a solid climb, especially considering how rolling everything is. We knew what we were in for and so we made sure to try hard to get a good night sleep in the van and have enough food to carry us through the long morning of climbing.

Saturday morning was nice and crisp with predicted high temps just above 50F°. There was some intermittent sun that made it occasionally feel warmer, but we dressed appropriately to ensure we’d be comfortable for the entire time. The fact that the temperature didn’t change much throughout the day was a huge bonus as it meant a lot less time of shifting clothing around to meet conditions.

The starting bell sounded and we all began the initial steep climb out of town to get to the first 6 miles of county road pavement. I’m a strong climber and so this race mostly plays to my strengths, but starting with 22 miles of “up” is never easy. There were a few rollers in the first half of the course which allowed my wife to get ahead of me (she bombs downhills) but we did eventually meet up at the mile 22 aid station to spend some more miles together.

Mile 22 is the trailhead for Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota. It’s also a great place for an aid station and I enjoyed some quality hummus and pickle wraps and a quick shot of Coke before heading back out to have a fun spin on The Grade. This is one of the better maintained forest service roads in the area and it connects a lot of trailheads and small lakes on this side of the Boundary Waters. My wife and I zipped along feeling pretty good throughout this section, my sore butt from Granny’s finally more tenderized. It was also nice to get some relatively flat road for a while without the continual up and down of most of the other roads.

Due to some construction on a bridge that is out, the course was a bit different this year. Sometimes that can really stink because Race Directors plan their courses to maximize challenge and beauty. When course changes happen it’s often to the detriment of one of these areas. The cool thing about this part of Minnesota is that it’s not really that hard to pick a few different roads and get basically the same type of beautiful lake-side forest roads. I haven’t done the previous course, but almost everyone I talked to agreed that this route was just as, if not more, beautiful than the original route.

After spending some time on The Grade and topping out the highest point on the course, we turned down Ball Club Road to head past Two Islands Lake and Devil’s Track Lake. It was around this time that my wife got a burst of energy and started to pull away. Since the rest of the course is net down hill I knew I was done riding with her for the day. I’m not a fast descender, and as I’ll share in a bit, there were other mechanical reasons I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with her on the way back. I was feeling good through so I just tucked my head down and kept plugging along.

Riding along Devil’s Track Lake gave us a brief moment of additional pavement before dumping up back onto the most beautiful gravel road along a moraine that you will find. Amazing pine forests with small lakes dotting the landscape as you roll along the gentle ridge line. This area was one of the biggest highlights of the ride for me, and I could see going back up that way just to ride around for fun.

From a race perspective I was doing pretty OK. I could have eaten just a little bit more towards the end as by this point I had mostly burnt through everything I slammed at the aid station. I thankfully had some liquid calories that were still tasting good so I worked my way through those as we returned to the final gravel road section of the race.

I played leapfrog with another rider for a bit throughout the rolling hills; me pushing strong up the roller and him reeling me back in on the down. The rollers were getting less and less though and we were starting to simply descend. We made one final turn down a big gravel hill and popped out back on County Road 7, a nicely paved 4.5 mile road back into town. It was here that the limitations of my chosen gear gave me a huge chuckle.

My bike (Otso Fenrir) is mostly geared towards climbing and rough terrain. From a pure math perspective (gear inches) I top out at ~22mph. At that point I’m out of gears and I’m just spinning. As I started up-shifting on the downhill and pedaling to enjoy the pavement descent I hit my top gear. That was it. I spent the final four miles gently spinning my legs in circles for something to do as the bike hovered at its max speed. The hill wasn’t steep enough to propel me much faster, and I didn’t have any gears left to give myself any ‘oomph’. So I just chilled and said hi to all the riders that zipped past me in the final section, laughing at my predicament.

Because the very last two blocks of the race are a VERY steep downhill (into a very busy road) the timing mat is up on the county road and once you cross it you’re required to ease down and do a neutral finish to the ceremonial line. I crossed the timing mat with a final time of 4:23:20, not a PR by any stretch, but a solid effort on a very hilly course. Plus, I was feeling mostly good at the end.

I met up with my wife (she finished in 4:17) and chatted with the other riders I had been leapfrogging with, laughing and smiling about the beauty of the day. Ending a race into a very small-town downtown is such a different thing than finishing in a campground or in the middle of the woods. They’re all great and fun ways to finish, but the small-town finish is something unique. There’s people around watching, and people going about their day. You’ve just spent the entire morning in some of the most isolated parts of the state, and then boom, you’re surrounded by cheering and activity and energy. It’s a fun way to wrap up a day.

We hung out for a while to watch some other friends finish and then the chill of our sweat got to be too much and we had to head back to the van to change and get warm. We relaxed for a short bit and then headed back to the brewery for a celebratory beer and food, and more visiting with friends.

Since we don’t get up to Grand Marais as often as we’d like we opt’d to stay another night after the race, so we were able to meet some family who have property up there and do dinner. It also meant that we got to be around for breakfast on Sunday morning and hit World’s Best Donuts before heading home. And yes, they’ve earned the name.

There was something about Le Grand du Nord that really struck me. The location, the people, the challenge. It all built upon things that have deep meaning for me, and it filled me up with joy. I can certainly see coming back to be a part of this event again in the coming years, and I know I’ll happily recommend it as a great place to experience the best that Minnesota gravel riding has to offer.