Bearmouth was brought back last year, and is pretty much the only road race in the state. MSU does still put on theirs, and this year there was a UM crit the same weekend, but I didn't make it out in the open field for either. I do wish I'd gone to the road race, it looked like a great course out by Lewis and Clark caverns.
One thing I am starting to appreciate for road racing is a fully paved course with minimal traffic. At bearmouth, we basically have the roads to ourselves. The first out and back is a nice, rolling frontage road along the river and interstate from Drummond to Bearmouth, the second out and back goes over a pass to Helmville. No one has much of a reason to drive on those roads.
On to the race, there were about 25 in our open field. There's a long 1/2/3 race, and a short 4/5 race. But because of the difficulty of getting a road upgrade around here, an "open 4/5" category was added, which means anyone can race in the big race if they want. I managed to actually get myself a cat 3 upgrade last year but there are a number of really fast, experienced racers around who still are 4/5s on the road.
