Mountain Bike Team fields 22 cyclists at first race of the 2022 season

Steve Smail
The USN Mountain Bike team began its 10th NICA season on Sunday, fielding 22 total MS and HS riders at the Chickasaw Trace Park trails in Columbia, TN. Nearly 500 cyclists grades 6-12 descended on the park for race day and as expected, hot and humid conditions meant everyone’s top priority was to establish their best “heat management” strategies to stay fresh for the starting line and during each lap of the race.
Our large middle school team performed well, finishing 14th out of 24 teams total for team points. First-time 6th grade racers Elsa Absi, Harper Hughey, and Charlie McNulty all finished their single lap (about 4.2 miles of mixed terrain), joined by a large group of 7th graders (both veteran racers and first-timers) also racing around a single lap (Asha Guha, Dalton Dervan, Garrett Northwall, Aidan Harris, Kevin Mehr, Hannah Mackler, Adeline Miller, and Suzie Zhao).

8th graders Coco Shepard, Charlie Blau and Avery Savona took on a 2-lap race (about 8.5 miles) and did well in their "double-time" heat-exposure competitions. Team points for Middle School were collected by our four highest point finishers for the day - Mackler, Shepard, Miller and Blau - with fastest MS laps coming from Blau (23:52) and Mackler (25:52). We are excited about the rising talent in our middle school team and look forward to the remainder of our 5-race season.

High School fielded 8 riders and placed 8th out of 28 teams for the day. Senior Els Shepard, last year’s JV State Champion (USN’s first), upgraded into the Varsity category (also USN’s first Varsity-level rider), and took on what we knew would be a very competitive field for 3 laps (about 13 miles). Senior Jaimie List was not able to race due to injury, but helped the team manage race day logistics.

Junior Christopher Haynes rode 3 ~20-minute laps but suffered bad leg cramps through laps 2 and 3, still managing a 16th place in his category. Junior Maya Guha returned to the race scene after a year off, and pulled out consecutive 25-30 minute laps. Sophomores Tate Green, Leo Frein, Quinn Dehner and Rohan Ramachandran took on a large field of 10th grade racers, with race veterans Frein and Green working together riding sub-20 minute laps and finishing 9th and 12th, with Quinn and Rohan riding 25-30 minute laps for 25th/26th place.

Freshman Ryder Ortner, new to USN but not new to racing, was upgraded into the JV category based on last year’s performance as an 8th grader racing the Freshman category, placing 2nd overall in 2021 race series. Despite already having competed with the USN XC team on Saturday and a last-row start for his category, Ortner dug deep, passed dozens of riders and clocked in 3 laps, all at or under 19 minutes, winning his JV category. Ryder was the solo USN cyclist standing on the Podium at the end of the race day.  HS team points came from Ortner, Shepard, Guha and Frein for Race #1, with fast lap times from Ortner (17:27), Haynes/Frein/Green (~19:30) and Shepard (24:10)

Our competitive mountain bike season accumulates both individual and team points over our lengthy season of 5 races through the end of October. All the details about the NICA season races can be found here: https://tennesseemtb.org/events/races/ and full results from Race #1 are here: https://my.raceresult.com/215599/ 

On September 11th, the team travels to Jackson, TN to race on brand new trails at Rockabilly Park.
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University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.