Club riders mix it up on the hills
Though the collegiate mountain biking season doesn’t begin until September, many Utah State University bikers see this time of year as a preseason. As the road season is coming to a close, Kodey Myers goes mountain biking on his off days as cross training.
“I’m more of a roadie, and you can tell when I get on a mountain bike,” Myers said. “I don’t have the skills yet, but I can outclimb most of the people.”
Myers, a junior majoring in exercise science human movements and biology pre-health, rides for both the Utah State cycling and mountain biking teams. He picked up mountain biking a year after he started road biking. Now, he is the race director and club head for the mountain biking team.
“A couple years ago I got a road bike,” Myers said. “And then I wanted another one because you can never have enough bikes. So I wanted a mountain bike because there are plenty of good trails around here. Plus, it’s good cross training, so I just started riding.”
Many members of the USU cycling club compete in more than one discipline. Whether it is road biking, cyclocross or mountain biking, each has its own season, which allows for year-round racing.
There are currently five members on the mountain biking team. Though the team may be small in number, it rides with visible passion. Albert Packer, a senior majoring in graphic design with a minor in Spanish, said he started taking jumps three years ago and now constantly seeks an adrenaline rush.
“Riding with friends is what makes me daring,” Packer said. “The more you do it, the less interesting it gets. You got to push yourself and progress to get to where you’re feeling that adrenaline.”
Packer started out with 15-foot jumps and has now advanced to 30-foot jumps.
“For me, it was a progression,” Packer said. “I started out riding cross-country, and then I worked my way into downhill. I prefer biking above hiking any day of the week, because I can see the same exact cool stuff and have fun and cover 10 times as much ground. It got to the point where I wasn’t going fast enough or wasn’t going big enough, and I lacked the adrenaline. So then I started downhill, because I like the adrenaline rush.”
Packer, a Cache Valley local, began mountain biking five years ago and hasn’t stopped since. This past season was his first time racing for USU.
“You get hooked really fast,” he said.
Two basic classifications within mountain biking – endurance and gravity – cater to a wide variety of riders because of the various events within the two classifications.
Generally, Packer said he likes to race in gravity events, such as downhill and dual slalom. Myers, however, said he prefers to participate in endurance events, like cross-country and short track, but in time hopes to get into gravity.
“I want to get the guts to do some downhill and try some of the smaller jumps this year,” Myers said. “I guess I’ve got to learn how to be more not scared. Honestly, I’ve wrecked more on the mountain bike than I have on the road, and I’ve been on the road a year longer. But my worst injuries have come from road wrecks. Going downhill on dirt is a little more forgiving than straight asphalt. I’ve had blood, but Albert has broken a few bones.”
Packer broke his collarbone in two places over spring break, when he went over his handlebars, descending a steep pitch. After recent surgery, he now has a metal plate holding his clavicle together. He said he won’t be back on a bike until July and plans to compete during the collegiate season.
“Mountain biking in general is extremely tame in crashes,” Packer said. “You’ll scrape yourself or get a bruise. The only reason I ever break bones is because I’m flying off of 30-foot cliffs, and that’s not what normal people do.”
Because racing can be dangerous, collegiate conference participants must purchase a license to race, which covers insurance. Kimberly Garvie, the Inter-Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference director, said a license also serves “as a way to keep track of race results for upgrades.”
Garvie, a native from western Massachusetts, works for USU’s applied economics department, teaching introductory microeconomics, and is also a research technician for watershed sciences. She’s also an adviser for the USU mountain biking team.
“Currently mountain biking fields at nationals are smaller than road,” Garvie said. “But the numbers are expected to grow since high school mountain bike leagues are developing across the country. Fall 2012, high school mountain bike racing will officially begin throughout the state of Utah. We are currently working on a team in Cache Valley.”
The USU mountain biking club is also looking to build team membership, and Packer said it’s difficult to get people together to ride, because they’re not aware of the possibilities, and the team does not advertise much. It does, however, use Facebook to connect with other mountain bikers.
“We want to recruit people,” Packer said. “I think there are a lot of people who ride mountain bikes around school who think it would be fun, but they are scared to race because they think it will be all insane. You don’t go straight to downhill, and it’s like, ‘Here’s a 10-foot drop. Ready, go.’ Beginners compete with riders on the same level. You just build it up a little at a time.”
With five races each season, beginners start in the D category and work their way up to the A category to race as professionals. Unlike road racing, mountain biking is an individual effort, Myers said.
“There’s nobody in an A category that should be in the B’s,” Myers said. “You will find that in the road, sometimes. (But usually) people don’t upgrade if they don’t feel comfortable doing so.”
Last season was Myers’ first year racing mountain bikes for USU. He won the men’s B category in endurance, and Joan Meiners won the women’s B category. In gravity, Bradley Spencer won the men’s B category, putting USU in second place behind the University of Utah in conference standings.
Though no one from Utah State went to nationals in 2011, USU sent Brian Hestetune to nationals in 2009 and 2010.
“We are hoping to have two or three (USU riders) qualify for nationals in Angel Fire, N.M., this fall,” Garvie said. “Most of the riders also race road in the spring and summer, so they will be coming into the fall mountain bike season with more fitness than last year. Hopefully our gravity riders will race downhill all summer, as well, to prepare.”
“It’s all about having fun and messing around,” Packer said. “For me, a lot of it is the camaraderie, because I would get bored if I rode by myself. I mean, I have my goals in it, and I want to do better, but I think the overall part is just riding with a bunch of friends and din
king around in the mountains.”
– kristi.j.lambert@aggiemail.usu.edu