From left to right: Bodhi Hriciga, Tyler Roe, coach Don Rose, Will Myers, Tessa Mead and Owen Cole
“Even if you fall, you hop back up and keep going,” blared the announcer at the mountain bike state championship held May 22 in Mayodan, N.C.
For senior Will Myers, winning for the first time at his last race as a high schooler, this was true. After falling on the penultimate lap, he got back up immediately, powering through to win after a year without racing.
The pandemic took a toll on the East Chapel Hill Mountain Bike Team last year, when all of their races were canceled. 2022 effectively marks the first year back for the team, and it’s been successful as they have won three of the four races this year, as well as winning the series as a team overall.
Despite not racing during the pandemic, Myers and senior Owen Cole continued training, which allowed them to come into this season with peak performance and an increased motivation to compete.
“I have to say, the first race back was pretty incredible,” said Cole, who won the first race back. “When you have over 500 kids out racing that results in a lot of parents [and] family members coming out to watch… Then to be able to win the first race back was pretty awesome.”
Myers feels the same, as he views his competing in varsity races in part as a reward for training in spite of the pandemic. Aside from both of their efforts to focus on enjoying biking this year more than just winning, they have also assumed loose mentorship roles on the team.
“We have a lot of new freshmen, [and it’s] really fun to ride with them and give them the experience of being on this team,” Cole said. “We have one sophomore, but [other than him] the team is entirely freshmen and seniors. [The seniors] are the only ones who’ve actually raced at the high school level with the team, so we’re showing the freshmen the ropes and introducing them to high school mountain bike racing.”
On race days, much of their time is spent watching the middle schoolers and younger high schoolers compete, which provides opportunities throughout the day to “hang out” with fellow cyclists. Events of the weekend aren’t just limited to the Sundays they race, though.
“Usually, the Saturday before a race the team meets up and rides and practices the course,” Myers said. “It’s a good chance to talk about our feelings for the race [the next day] and what we want to think about and do leading up to it.”
A lot of the courses don’t even end up being very technical so as to make them as available to as many people as possible. To further emphasize inclusivity, there are no necessary tryouts, so everybody who joins the team gets to race if they so desire.
The team’s ideals stem from NICA (National Interscholastic Cycling Association), which the team operates under. NICA was founded in 2009 out of Calif. with the intention of creating mountain bike teams for middle and high schoolers. The N.C. league, NCICL (North Carolina Interscholastic Cycling League), was formed five years ago.
“A big part of what [NICA wants] us to try to accomplish here is to just get more kids on bikes,” head coach Don Rose said. “So, there’s an emphasis not on racing exclusively but just getting kids outdoors and getting them on bikes and enjoying each other and nature as they’re outside.”
Another part of NICA includes empowering girls to support one another and ride together with their program referred to as GRiT (Girls Riding Together). While the East team is sparse on girls, there is one who has had a successful year.
“I was glad I was able to join [the East team] because I had heard that there hadn’t been a girl on the team before that had also been able to place,” said freshman Tessa Mead, who won her first race as a part of the team. “It’s also cool seeing other girl bikers, because even though there’s like a [one to four girl to boy] ratio for the freshmen category, it’s cool to see more people joining and the different movements that are going on [to promote girls to ride].”
To try to get more girls on the team, Mead, who has been mountain biking since she was a toddler, has taken to going out with one of her friends to help teach her how to mountain bike.
Like Mead, Cole and Myers have biked for much of their lives, participating in mountain biking throughout middle school. The two were set on competing at the high school level when coming to East as freshmen nearly four years ago, both already having familiarity with the team and Rose.
Knowledge of the team, and thus joining it, primarily operates under a word-of-mouth philosophy, where cyclists in the area tend to already all know each other. However, given that the team has no formal association with the high school, they are extremely limited in terms of marketing, publicity and recruitment, particularly when it comes to freshmen.
“[The team] is loosely affiliated with [ECHHS], but it’s not an official club,” Rose said. “I don’t know all of the details, but my understanding is that we have to have a faculty sponsor [to become an official club], and that faculty sponsor has to actually be present and part of the team. There are faculty that would sign a form saying that they would sponsor us, but I think the requirement is that they actually come out and ride with us, so it’s hard to find someone who is a faculty member and also a mountain biker who is willing to come out and be with us.”
Despite the team’s overall success this year, the bikers will receive no recognition or sponsorship from the school.
“[Administration] kind of talked about how there is an expensive aspect to racing, and that is definitely true, but it’s no worse than any other sport because there’s always equipment costs,” Cole said. “In Chapel Hill, we have a really good setup for a loaner bike program, so anyone who wants to ride or race or do anything can come out because there’s equipment available for them, so that’s really not the barrier it seems like on the surface. That was really the only argument that was ever really presented to us as to why we can’t be a club.”
With the season over, Cole and Myers are looking to the future when it comes to their mountain biking careers. Cole plans to join the UNC cycling club team next year, racing primarily at the national level at least through college. Myers plans to train at the collegiate level by joining the cycling club at Colorado College, though he intends to compete primarily by himself.
If you are interested in more information on or joining the East Chapel Hill Mountain Bike Team, Don Rose can be contacted at donaldjrose@gmail.com.
