Mountain bike teams finish solid seasons on challenging Raccoon Mountain trails

By Amy Dortch and Steve Smail, Head Coaches 

This brand new course to the NICA-TICL race series presented a big challenge and one the team has been working towards. The course is highlighted by a 2.5-mile long section of technical riding, with almost non-stop rock ledges, drops, and maze-like, sandy rock gardens to navigate. The course took its toll on many of the nearly 500 racers that day, but every USN rider finished their race, with some riders nearly landing on the podium for the season overall results.

The team rallied around Els Shepard, our only senior riding in the state championship since teammate Jaimie List is out for the season. Els completed 7+ years of riding with three consistent laps, playing it safe, calm, and consistent as they have done all season long. Our only Varsity rider and only state champion to date (last year in the JV category), Els has participated in nearly 30 races over their USN cycling career. Maya Guha made a triumphant return to state champs as well, after a year off due to injury. 

The remainder of our smaller High School team that day, three sophomores — Leo Frein, Tate Green, and Quinn Dehner — raced two laps mixed up with nearly 60 competitive sophomores. Tate suffered an unfortunate rear derailleur mechanical that caused shifting problems for the final two-thirds of his race, but the trio still managed seventh, 14th, and 21st places for the day, and finishing eighth, 12th, and 21st overall for the season. Had the race results on Sunday played out slightly differently with other riders, Leo and Tate had a chance to end up on the overall season podium (top five), but these sophomore boys, along with Rohan Ramachandran, Christopher Haynes, Benjamin Kampine, and Ryder Ortner will likely all be racing together in the JV category next year, and we look forward to this experienced crew racing together in the future.

In Middle School racing action, Charlie Blau and Coco Shepard raced the eighth grade categories, finishing 15th and ninth, both having solid first laps but really challenging second laps full of crashes, but both managing to get across the finish line. Our nearly full contingent of seventh graders — nine strong, missing Maggie Weiss due to injury — raced incredibly well on this tough course. Hannah Mackler, Adeline Miller and Kevin Mehr made the first lap cutoff times to race harder second laps, finishing seventh, 13th, and 16th. Asha Guha, Nora Maragno, and Suzie Zhao finished one lap close together in 15th, 17th and 18th. Aidan Harris, Basil Broemel, and Dalton Dervan also raced one lap, finishing 26th, 30th, and 31st. Our strong contingent of sixth grade girls nearly all finished together with Brianna Castro, Elsa Absi, and Harper Hughey in ninth, 11th, and 12th places with Absi and Hughey crossing the finish line together to complete their first season.

Highlights for overall season placements include: seventh grader and new rider Hannah Mackler missed a fifth place podium spot by a small margin; veteran Coco Shepard finished eighth; and Hughey and Absi just out of the top 10 in 11th and 12th. Blau, Mackler, Miller and Harris raced all 5 of our races this season. HS riders Frein, Green, Ortner finished in the top half of their competitive fields, with Guha 10th and Shepard 7th overall. Frein, Green and Shepard dug deep in all 5 races this season. Kudos to all our 25 riders who completed races this season!

The mountain bike team will resume racing in late August 2023 to build on these strong performances and an increasingly experienced and large middle school squad. We are incredibly grateful to the USN transportation crew for helping manage our riders and bikes all season, and really lucky to have assistant Coaches Gregg Shepard, Stephen Carr, and Dave Crumpton helping out, with special practice ride leader appearances by Edgar Castro and faculty Matt Lukach, Jeff Goold, Meagan Hall, and Alissa Murdoch. Thank you!

Full-season results are here.
Previous race reports here.