The Middle Park High School Mountain Bike Team won the prestigious Colorado High School Cycling League’s All-Star Award at the championship races Oct. 21-22. 

The league awarded this top honor to Middle Park out of 89 participating teams, reporting that it was selected because team members displayed the most grace and kindness. In addition, the league said the team had one of the strongest coach to racer ratios, the highest levels of training certifications among its coaches and ride leaders, demonstrated significant parental involvement and provided the largest relative percentage of volunteers at races. Other factors were that Middle Park displayed exuberant team spirit, rapidly rebuilt the team after many of its members graduated, and achieved remarkable success moving from Division 3 (teams with nine or fewer participants) last year, to Division 2 (teams with 10-29 participants) this year.  

During the season Middle Park High School tied for first place in one of its four regional races and took second in the remaining races, beating out five other teams in the Platte Region. 

The state championship races took place on a warm fall weekend of peak color at the Colorado Mountain College’s Spring Valley Campus in Glenwood Springs. It was the largest state championship race in the league’s history, with 859 racers from over 120 schools and 89 teams spanning four states. Teams from Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and New Mexico participated.  The course is located in a beautiful Western Slope sage and pinyon forest and offers stunning views of Mount Sopris to the south.  

The races began on the wide-open soccer field northeast of campus, but quickly narrowed to a dusty, uphill double-track section that ran for over 1.5 miles before narrowing further into a technical downhill single-track section with many loose corners and rocks.  As racers vied for position on the double-track section, their speed was astounding and the dust kicked up was phenomenal. 

The course continued in and out of forested areas and up and down steep terrain marked by dozens of rocky switchbacks. This course was the most technical of the courses during the season, with an elevation gain of 665 feet per 5.5 mile lap.  Freshmen, sophomore and junior varsity racers completed two laps while varsity racers completed three.

“What an amazing season for all of our athletes,” head coach Steve Myers said. “…their hard work, dedication and amazing spirit all season paid off with excellent results and progression at every race throughout the season, concluding with impressive results at the final state championships.”  

Many of Middle Park’s racers moved up from their starting positions during the race, which speaks to their extensive interval and distance training throughout the season.  The freshman girls put in a remarkable showing with Maia McGinnis-Smith finishing 18th out of 83 girls and moving up 14 places.  Zanna Berman moved up five places to finish 21st, Sophia McGinnis-Smith finished 22nd after moving up 14 spots, and Luca Archie moved up a whopping 41 places to finish 40th. 

The freshman boys also had an excellent showing with Alex Burke finishing 31st out of 142 racers.  Tyler Schroetlin moved up a stupendous 48 places to finish 71st.  The sophomores raced strong with Morgan Spiewak finishing 35th out of 73 girls.  Jackson Pacocha moved up 14 places to finish 80th out of 152 boys and Lucas Reade finished 108th after moving up an astounding 35 places. 

The junior varsity girls had an excellent race with Cambree Burke finishing 64th out of 102 girls after moving up 11 places and Paige Vecchiarelli moved up 10 spots to finish 88th.  Josh Davis had a strong finish of 44th out of 95 varsity boys after moving up 12 places, and Annie Kuhns had a commendable finish of 24th out of 56 varsity girls after moving up 12 places. 

The team took 8th place out of the 25 Division 2 teams.

“I want to express a huge thank you to our assistant coaches Craig Daugherty and Liz Newsome, the rest of our excellent and committed coaching staff, and all of our supportive parents,” Meyers said. “Thanks to everyone for your amazing team spirit, which resulted in a very well-earned and deserved season-culmination with the team all-star award. Great job everyone; let’s go 2024!”