The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Solid results all around
by Than Acuff
The CB Devo high school mountain bike team repeated their effort from last year as they finished third overall at the Cloud City Challenge in Leadville on Sunday, September 10.
Coach Torrey Carroll chalks up the effort of his team to one main issue, which can make or break the podium result.
“For most of the kids it’s their favorite course,” explains Carroll. “Lots of fun singletrack and they’re good at riding fast on singletrack.”
But there’s more to it than just the course. Carroll believes that the team, and specifically the younger riders, is feeding off the energy of the season starting with the opening race two weeks ago.
“I think they’re motivated by how well they did in the first race and excited to do better,” says Carroll. “The new kids on the team are realizing they can do really well.”
Ultimately, though, it comes down to results and in the end almost everyone improved on their result from the first race to help push the team up to the podium.
Varsity boy’s riders Ian Eldridge, James Bivens and JC Patterson all moved up in the Leadville race with Eldridge posting the top result coming in 18th place.
“They all moved up a little bit and were solid results for sure.” Says Carroll. “It’s just such a competitive class.”
While JV racer Dylan Alagna showed the wear and tear of illness, Ethan Carroll jumped up 18 places from his first race and Finn Wilson opened his race season placing 33rd despite only a modicum of training, a mechanical and a horrible start spot due to his lack of a result from the first event of the year.
“He had a broken derailleur so he only had three gears but ended up passing a ton of people,” says Carroll.
Sophomore racer Robbie Oberling made the podium for the second race in a row placing 10th and Marko Alling was another CB Devo rider coming off of an illness yet still placed well to finish in 17th place.
Gus Bullock led the freshmen boys team coming in 11th place just 10 feet shy of the podium while Max Carroll made a massive jump from his first race climbing close to 30 places in the results.
“He had the fifth fastest start split of all of the freshmen,” says Carroll. “He took off like a rocket.”
The girls’ side of things then rallied to tack on numerous great results and truly push the team onto the podium.
Both JV girls’ racers Marion Chater and Emily Knight jumped up a handful of spots from the first race with Chater posting the top finish of 13th place.
The sophomore and freshmen girls sealed the deal. Sophomore rider Olivia Gordon placed second for the second race in a row. Ruby Laemmel was on pace to gain more spots but ran into the back of another racer on a steep climb during the first lap. Nevertheless, she recovered to get back on her bike and regain her position finishing in seventh place.
“She rode really strong to hang onto seventh,” says Carroll.
Freshmen racers Nori Veit ad Lily Hanna ended up in a sprint to the finish with each other with Veit just edging it out to come in 12th and Hanna in 13th place.
Overall, everyone that started the race finished which is a feat in and of itself with 25 riders on course. In addition, the top 10 results are the ones that score for the team and the CB Devo team had five boys and five girls make up the scoring results.
The team will spend the next two weeks adjusting their training to further their development as they prepare for the next race.
“We’re doing intervals on the flats and hill climb intervals, not quite race pace,” says Carroll.
The team heads to Granby on Sunday, September 24 and Carroll is looking for the team to return to the podium again.
“The goal for the team is to work hard and battle for third place,” says Carroll. “It’s going to be tough, the four teams below us are all really close.”
