Island Ride Fest at Jordie Lunn Bike Park looked less like a race weekend and more like the mountain bike festival every riding community wishes it had. Three days of racing, riding, camping, jump jams, demo bikes, kids’ events, enduro racing and one gloriously ridiculous obstacle called the Swamp Skinny of Doom.

Revenge of the Swamp Skinny

Every festival needs a signature event. At Island Ride Fest, it’s the Swamp Skinny of Doom. This year was the Revenge of the Swamp Skinny. The concept couldn’t be much simpler. Ride a long elevated skinny across a swamp. Stay on the wood and you earn instant bragging rights. Miss your line and you’re going swimming.

Attempt after attempt ended the same way. With a splash. Then Dean Tennant rolled in. Tennant became the rider everyone had been waiting for, cleaning the infamous skinny and finally proving it could be done. It might have been the loudest cheer of the weekend.

Two others completed the obstacle.

Three days of bikes

Island Ride Fest packed just about everything imaginable into three days. Friday opened with a Klunker Race down Blue Trail, where riders raced old bikes for a share of the prize purse before heading over to a Dirt Jump Jam hosted by Mark Matthews and Ace Hayden.

Saturday kept things rolling with guided rides and kids’ coaching sessions from Nolan Riding before The Bike Shack Whip-Off sent riders sideways. Shimano, Devinci and Marin all brought demo bikes for riders to test throughout the day.

Then everyone wandered over to the pond for Revenge of the Swamp Skinny.

Sunday shifted toward racing with the fifth round of the Island Cup Enduro Series at Jorduro 3.

Already counting down to next year

Mountain biking doesn’t always need World Cup points . Sometimes all it needs is a great bike park, creative ideas, volunteers willing to put in the work and riders who are happy to spend an entire weekend laughing, riding and occasionally falling into a swamp.

Judging by everything that came out of Jordie Lunn Bike Park this weekend, Island Ride Fest absolutely nailed that formula.