The fastest 50 mile females: Shannon Carroll (2nd) Alex Cook (1st), Sydney Patterson (3rd) Photo Jeremy

Going into this 18th edition of The Heck of the North, I had a lot of questions about how the new changes we made would feel. As many of you know, The Heck experience as a whole means everything to me. The routes have to be good, of course. But so, too, does the atmosphere of the whole weekend. That means from the time of packet pickup on Friday to the time leaving Two Harbors on the way back home.

The move back into Two Harbors was a big leap in faith and design. Thankfully, our partnership with the City of Two Harbors (law enforcement, public works and administration) as well as the close collaboration with our friends at Castle Danger Brewery made the transition much smoother. A special thank you to Caitlin and Caleb at Castle Danger Brewery, Dan and Kirsten at Spokengear/Cedaero/Cedar Coffee, and Lovin’ Lake County. We are very grateful for these teams’ cooperation with allowing 600+ cyclists be part of the fabric of Two Harbors for a day. And we have some of the best sponsors in cycling, too!

The best part of the weekend for me was standing at the finish line and watching hundreds of people enjoying their time with friends, family, new acquaintances and old rivals. In this age of way way too much screen time, seeing people interacting face to face, challenging themselves physically and mentally and simply just sitting on the curb watching the world go by is beautiful.

Of course there are parts of our gritty little gravel pit home on the East Alger Grade I miss. But overall, our experience with this inaugural Heck Fest by Agate Bay in Two Harbors was a success on many levels. We will take the next few weeks to plan the upcoming season of Heck of the North Production events. We welcome feedback about your experience this season with our events.

A special thank you to our incredible volunteers, local law enforcement and EMS services and our partners in public land USFS, MN DNR (which is crucial to events like ours.)

We thank you for being part of The Heck experience. From the fastest to the toughest, you are what make these events so amazing.

Jeremy and the Heck team