AdventureDuluth.com?

Griz May 01, 2011 10 Comments

I was out walking the old DWP railbed south of the tunnel today when I saw a blue bumper sticker for adventureduluth.com stuck on the back of a stop sign. I tried to visit the site, but it no longer exists. Anyone know anything about adventureduluth.com and what it was?

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10 Comments

Cory Fechner

about 13 years ago 

It was a trialthon type race event put on by the Lakewalk Surgery Center it started in 2002 and the website went down in 2008. It appears the last race was in 2005. 2005 Results

A Northwoods Race for the Modern Day Voyageur
- Lake Superior Swim - Kayak - Mountain Bike - Inline Skate - Whitewater Canoe - Trail Run

Snapshot of website from 2005:
http://replay.web.archive.org/20051225074726/http://www.adventureduluth.com/index.html

Loki

about 13 years ago 

It was bad ass, I wish it was still going on!

Jess

about 13 years ago 

I think UMD had a hand in the coordination of the event as well (or at least some of the Rec Sports Outdoor Program staff were involved). 

Coordination of the event was pretty tricky due to the amount of ground covered by the race. There were thoughts of trying to do more of a clover-leaf style course with more of a main transition zone. 

I'd love to see the race, or at least the concept, revived and would help on the planning/coordination committee!

chadp

about 13 years ago 

Aron Ralston (cut off his hand in a canyon fame) participated in the race one year.

Paul Lundgren

about 13 years ago 

Yes, Aron Ralston competed in the Adventure Duluth race on a three-person team with Chris Godsey and Rod Raymond in 2003, five months after Ralston sawed off his right arm.

Ralston had a speaking engagement on Sept. 19, 2003 at the DECC as part of the College of St. Scholastica's Management Institute Leadership Series. The race was the next day.

Cory

about 13 years ago 

I would love to participate in that race!

Ouch!
[img]http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSzLvYQzwZ2kQy9oOdKSFtX7wavAWcg1iPzlRcBmNDWhKxaC0E4sg[/img]

woodtick

about 13 years ago 

I was the race director for the mountain bike portion of the race.  The sticker was placed as part of the route toward Spirit Mtn which the riders bombed down to finish near the Western Waterfront Trail.

zra

about 13 years ago 

Whatever happened to DuSu?

Cory Fechner

about 13 years ago 

Business North Story on the demise of the Dusu.

http://www.businessnorth.com/aroundtheregion.asp?RID=3791

It is my personal belief this concept had the makings to be successful. I think the project needed a more community focused model. It needed a more grassroots team of stakeholders with a wide range of competencies involved to better  engage local connections, colleges and resources to help the project gain traction. This project needed a plan that took into consideration it would take at least a year to gain any sort of momentum or consistent traffic to get advertisers excited enough to roll out the plan to monetize. Not to mention a better name and URL would have helped.

wildgoose

about 13 years ago 

+1 Cory I agree with that analysis.  I had not heard that it was officially "over" thanks for the link to the article, too.  

What a waste, on the DuSu. Personally I had some involvement early on, most of it accidental as they did a launch event at Movies in the Park and I happened to be there with a whole steamer full of wienies to give away.  But also I signed up to be a contributor and even did a contribution but it wasn't my demographic, under 30, so I backed off figuring I'd just be there laming up the place.  But without older grey haris like me the younger people didn't come and get involved either and I guess it just didn't work.  

Ironically, during the same period it seems as though Perfect Duluth Day exploded in users, viewers and influence.  I wonder what PDD could have done with $150k to promote the site and encourage young people to stay in the community?  And would we even have liked a PDD that was betrothed to locla foundations and there interests.  We'll never know. Although I did hear a PDD underwriter today during peak drive time on MPR, I wonder if that will bring in new audience?  

One lingering effect of "The Dusu" is the twitter hashtag #dusu which was supposed to be for anything that is Twin Port and "cool" in a DUluth Superior way, but it has evolved into a tag for something that happens that includes Superior, WI.  Still it lives on and tends to get 4 or 5 post a week on average.

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