PHOTOS: Mountain Bike Racing At Salem Hills Park

Roughly 350 biking enthusiasts turned out to Salem Hills Park and the Harmon Park Reserve in Inver Grove Heights on Saturday for the "Freewheel Frolic," a rough-and-tumble mountain bike race.

 The “Freewheel Frolic” is the first race in the Minnesota Mountain Bike Series — which runs through September and has stops in various cities throughout Minnesota. The series started in the early 1990s, with the inaugural race usually held at the Buck Hill Ski Are.

Five years ago, the series organizers decided to move the race to Salem Hills to take advantage of less challenging terrain. The move to a more accessible venue without difficult hills opened up the race to more participants.

Series director Gary Sjoquist was expecting as many as 600 racers on Saturday, but said the poor weather affected the race turnout.

“This is our biggest race of the series,” Sjoquist said.

This family-friendly event had multiple races for kids and adults ranging in age from eight to 68. Races are based on category, gender, and age. Each category does a certain amount of laps: Two for the Citizen class, three in the Sport class, four in the Comp class and five laps for the Expert/Pro class. Each lap at Salem Hills is roughly four miles long.

The Minnesota Mountain Bike Series is a non-profit organization. The money that is generated from race entry fees is used to fund programs like “Trips for Kids” — which provides inner city kids the opportunity to experience mountain biking on our Minnesota trail system. Proceeds from the series are also funneled into Minnesota High School Cycling League — a newly formed Minnesota State High School League-sanctioned sport that begins competition in September of 2012.

“Getting kids involved in mountain biking is one of our primary goals,” Sjoquist said.