Mountain bike team ready to rumble at state championships

State championships this Sunday

With three races under their belt, the Crested Butte high school mountain bike team is now ranked third out of 26 teams.
The team moved up in the overall rankings following a particularly strong showing in the Peaceful Valley Invitational on Saturday, October 5.
The Peaceful Valley course offered the opportunity for the young team to prove their ilk with a rolling course of both singletrack and doubletrack. Furthermore, racers were forced to up the ante as the JV class rode three laps for a total of 20 miles.
“It’s a power course, smooth and fast,” says coach Torrey Carroll.
Patrick Curvin had a breakout performance at Peaceful Valley. After finishing around 10th place in his previous two races, Curvin mashed his way to a second-place finish out of 90-plus riders. Kai Sherman was five seconds off of Curvin in third place.
“It was pretty exciting,” says Carroll. “To see Pat jump up into second place was impressive.”
Oz Scott finished up in 10th place and Cristo Church crossed in 15th. Derek Shomler had missed three weeks of training due to illness and injury but rallied to finish in 43rd place and Tristan Kraatz held on to come in 49th place.
Brennan O’Hagan used the long course to her advantage in the girls JV race. After hovering around 25th place through two laps, O’Hagan passed five riders on the final lap to finish in 20th.
“It was a long course and I kept telling her that the third lap would be good for her,” says Carroll.
Liam Rose finished the day in 29th place in the sophomore race and Will Johnson put his best race of the season together to come in sixth place in the freshman class.
“Everybody had a pretty solid race,” says Carroll. “Our kids rode well.”
In addition to moving into third place overall as a team, four riders are in the top 10 in the overall points series in their classes. Sherman currently sits in second place with Curvin in fifth, and Oz Scott in ninth in the JV class. Johnson sits in seventh place overall in the freshman class. If Sherman wins the last race, he will take the state title in his race class.
The team now has its sights set on the state championships in Eagle on Sunday, October 20. After a couple days of spinning indoors and squeezing in rides between snow squalls, Carroll has a couple more rides in mind before resting up for the final push.
“We’re looking forward to the last race—the kids are psyched,” says Carroll. “If we have a good showing at state, then we will hold onto third place and make the podium as a team.”