MANKATO – Mount Kato’s lure of mountain bikers played host to the weekend inaugural Kato Fall Fest.
Sponsored by the Greater Mankato Bike and Walk Advocates (GMBWA) and the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota (BikeMN), Saturday’s events included a 5K walk, afternoon trail rides at Mount Kato, and an early evening bonfire and welcome to first-day participants.
Sunday’s the big day, beginning at 8 a.m. with four different route options for what’s expected to be several hundred registrants. There’s the 11.4-mile mixed surface Red Jacket Loop, 12.4-mile paved Minneopa Loop, a 37.2-mile paved Mankato Loop, as well as a 38.7-mile gravel Good Thunder loop which takes bikers further south.
Organizers are also hoping to pitch the region’s growing biking community and two other popular regional routes: the Minnesota River Trail and West Mankato Trail.
Devon Soule, Mankato, and his two sons were among early riders Saturday, already testing out some of the new trail loops. Soule, who has been a bike enthusiast “my whole life,” enjoyed the route.
“Mankato is really a great place for mountain biking,” Soule said. “Mount Kato is actually one of my favorites.”
It’s a message Bike Fall Fest organizers would be happy to push. The GMBWA nonprofit organization, as the local chapter of Bike MN, hopes to keep momentum going after taking over from the past successes of the Mankato River Ramble.
The River Ramble first ran in 2011 but was cancelled last year due to contract disputes between event founder Richard Arey, local organizers and BikeMn officials.
Still, GMBWA president Ben Scheidel sees the inaugural Kato Bike Fall Fest as an opportunity to tell the story of the Greater Mankato biking community.
“Our board is pretty connected in the biking world,” Scheidel said Saturday. “It’’s a pretty well-known mountain biking area.”
But there’s also great support from regional businesses and local governmental agencies.
“Mount Kato’s been great and Visit Mankato’s been great, too,” Scheidel said. “It really is a great bike community.”
Scheidel said registrations were cut off Thursday at 250 bikers, but he’s certain that with great weather, same-day registrations could easily bring that number to 300 or 400 participants.
Ted Duepner, operations manager for the Minneapolis-based BikeMN, echoes Scheidel’s words about the growing bicycle community of Greater Mankato.
“I’m really excited about this event,” he said. “I love coming down here.”
Duepner’s also impressed with the local organizers, hundreds of volunteers who do the work of both advocating for the Greater Mankato bike community and serve as hosts for the inaugural Kato Bike Fall Fest.
“They’re all volunteers and we’re just trying to help rebuild their efforts down here,” he added. “They’re really good at being tied into the community.”
The two-day festival will also offer introductions to “Gravel Cyclocross Bike Polo and BMX. But with an 8 a.m. early Sunday morning start, organizers will be on hand at Mount Kato for this first-ever bike fest.
“Sunday’s going to be a big day,” Scheidel said.