Mountain bike racing in Sioux Falls? It’s definitely become a thing

By Mick Garry, for Pigeon605

Travis Heintz is an early-40-something nurse anesthetist who is getting his first taste of mountain bike racing this summer.

Thad Barnes is a later-40-something who wanted to stay in shape.

Miles Lechtenberg is a 13-year-old who got his first taste of competitive mountain biking when a friend asked him to check it out while the pandemic had its claws in the other sports he plays.

Photos by Elliot Barnes & Friends Photography

On a recent Tuesday night, they were all at Tuthill Park racing through the woods and hills with other men, women, boys and girls who have taken up this sport.

Organized by the Sioux Falls Bike Racing Series, the competitive mountain bikers in the area didn’t let the weekend’s storms deter the Tuthill Mountain Bike Festival. Despite some delays, the deep dive into mountain bike racing and socializing offered up by this local branch of enthusiasts pressed on.

On its Facebook page, the group says: “We want to host a welcoming environment that encourages competition and celebrates participation.”

Conversations with the racers during a recent visit bear that out.

“This is brand new for me,” said Heintz, a fit fellow who was not wearing what most would recognize as a traditional racing outfit. “I come to Tuthill for mountain biking regularly, but this was my first race. It seems like everybody is supportive of everyone. Everyone is trying to give you a pat on the back.”

Many would walk through this pleasantly tilted Sioux Falls park and not know it had a well-designed race course laid out on its grounds.

When you see a string of riders coming out of the woods in single file, however, you begin to understand that this is part of the fun. Occasionally when you’re racing, you get to come out of nowhere. What looks like a hill and a bunch of trees from afar is actually a challenging part of a cycling course that demands skill and practice.

“When these were installed four years ago, it was all privately funded without taxpayer dollars,” said Barnes, a member of Falls Area Singletrack, or FAST, the local chapter of the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

“We have an agreement with the city that allows us to put in these trails. We have them here at Tuthill and at Leaders Park, and we just put one in at Spencer this spring that runs along the river and connects with Yankton Trail. We have another at Legacy Park on the west side now too. We’re continuing to look for areas where we can expand within the city.”

Barnes will admit to moving forward quickly when he finds something he likes to do. In the four years since he began mountain biking in earnest, he has acquired new skills and new equipment, both at a breakneck pace.

“It’s smart to find someone to mentor you — find someone to ride with at the start who can teach you how to do it,” he said. “How do you take a turn? How do you maneuver a particular area? That’s how I learned. I’d be riding with guys, and they’d be teaching me how to deal with difficult areas. Then, I’d just come out and practice over and over.”

It’s clear that competitive mountain biking in all its forms demands technique. It’s more like swimming than running, in other words. Conditioning is a huge part of being competitive, but you have to know what you’re doing to get significantly faster.

It would be easy to make the parallel to golf in the importance of fundamentals, but the fascination with equipment is where golf and mountain bike racing share more common ground. Mountain bikers can become fascinated with the tools of the trade to a degree those on the outside looking in would never understand.

“It’s one of those things where, like any sport you’re involved in, the more interested you get, the more you’re into your equipment,” Barnes said. “You want to be lighter and faster, and the local bike shops do a great job of helping us out with that.

“My analogy is the hunter who has a different kind of gun for every different kind of animal he shoots. We’ve got a different bike for every different kind of race. There is always a justification to buy another bike.”

Molly Clark-Oien is one of the most accomplished mountain bikers in the area. The former Augustana distance runner is sponsored by Sanford Health and competes in events all over the Midwest.

Clark-Oien is 34 and got into cyclocross — think riding a bike and running in the mud while carrying that same bicycle — when her husband, Peter, bought her a mountain bike. She started riding the trails in Sioux Falls and, in her words, “fell in love with it.”

She has since become one of the fastest riders in addition to being one of the sport’s strongest local supporters.

“Racing bikes is a really rad thing, especially mountain biking,” she said. “As you learn more and grow in your riding, it only gets more enjoyable. That would be my sales pitch — my love for it has only grown for learning more and getting better at riding.”

Clark-Oien, like many of the regulars in the series, has a touch of the daredevil in her. Not so much as to be purposely reckless but you don’t accomplish what she has accomplished in mountain biking and cyclocross by aggressively searching out ways to practice caution.

“I raced my first cyclocross event here at Sherman Park, and I thought it was great,” she said. “So I decided I was going to enter a race in Missouri, where I have family. My mom went along to watch.”

The first part of the race went fine, Clark-Oien said, but then she rode through a turn that took her off the path. She tried to correct the mistake immediately — something experienced riders learn not to do — and went over the handlebars and landed on her head. Bruised and bloodied, she wanted to get back in the race but wasn’t having much luck with that.

“My mom said later she saw me carrying my bike and bleeding,” Clark-Oien said. “She said I was walking like a drunk person. I probably had a slight concussion, but I was OK eventually. I learned a lot that day about taking turns the right way.”

Lechtenberg has his own story about what can go wrong on a mountain bike. The teenager, who also plays basketball and football, is a tremendously conditioned young athlete who has emerged as a bright light among the junior racers. That doesn’t mean he can’t have a bad race once in awhile.

“I was coming through the grass area on the track when my pedal came loose, and I fell off my bike,” he said. “Then I got back up and passed everybody again, and then I hit a tree. Then on the last lap, my tire spit out, and I crashed right there on the dirt hill, and that was it. Those three things happened in just one race.”

No matter, though. And no fear.

“I love the community, I love the racing, and I love winning,” he said. “I just really like the sport — it’s a great way to stay active during the summer.”

Thankfully, it’s a sport with a strong sense of fraternity that delivers a high level of mountain biking etiquette. No one wants to see crashes, even if there is an occasional youngster who talks like they don’t seem to mind them too much.

The main thing is get out, compete and enjoy the ride.

“As we continue to develop more land for mountain biking and single track, we’ve seen the popularity grow,” Barnes said. “Just among my own friends, I’ve seen them go out and buy mountain bikes after they see that we have these kinds of facilities right in our backyard. You could be five minutes from your house right now, and when you’re riding through the woods, it doesn’t even seem like you’re in Sioux Falls. It’s fun stuff.”