Titans bike team hits midpoint of season

Gaining speed with each week

With three training rides a week and two races under their belt, the Crested Butte high school bike team continues to gain speed.

Coach Torrey Carroll has three athletes on the team this year who have committed to the full season this fall, and they’re improving with every week of riding.
“We’re still riding three days a week and we’ve been upping the pace of our rides and the difficulty of the trails,” says Carroll.
For their second stop of the inaugural high school bike-racing season, the team spent last Sunday at Devil’s Thumb Ranch outside of Fraser, Colo. under the glare of a nearby wildfire.
The course in Fraser put riders to the test with three laps totaling close to 14 miles and 2,100 feet of climbing total.
“It was a good course,” says Carroll. “Most of it was pretty smooth singletrack.”
Sophomore Josh Gallen led the Titan charge in Fraser, rolling to a third-place finish, his second podium showing in as many races.
Titan freshman Michael Ryan made the biggest improvement from his first race. It was Ryan’s second race ever and after opening the season with a middle of the pack performance, he jumped up to an 11th-place finish in Fraser.
“I think he got his feet wet in the first race and decided that he could ride harder and for the whole race,” says Carroll.
Freshman Tristan Kraatz had a finish similar to his effort two weeks ago, missing out on a pre-race goal.
Both Ryan and Kraatz started in the back of the pack due to some confusion at the start line, and while Ryan managed to push through, the field of riders bogged down Kraatz.
“Both he and Michael made a goal to finish in the top half of the pack and improve on their results,” says Carroll. “Michael had to do a lot of passing.”
The team has its next race on Sunday, October 17 in Lakewood, Colo. and will close the season with the Colorado State Championships on Sunday, October 31 in Elbert, Colo.