Albany Cougars Mountain Biking at Ft. Ord

Albany High Cougars Mountain Biking had a great day out at Fort Ord on Sunday, April 10. In the third race of the NorCal MTB season (norcalmtb.org), Albany fielded 21 riders - 8 girls and 13 boys - in JV, Sophomore, and Freshman categories. All of the girls finished the race, including two Sophomore riders - Victoria Pras at #1 and Ella Lopez at #5 - winning places on the award podium.

Mountain biking is a sport for almost all weather conditions, and at this race, the constant rain on the sandy trails meant great traction, but terrible wear and tear on chains and derailleurs. One of the Albany riders, sophomore Justin Wong-Shea, had to carry his bike for the final quarter lap, but about ten riders of the 290 racing Sunday crossed the finish line on foot, and a number of others were unable to finish or limped to the finish line with damaged drivetrains, standing on their pedals and gritting their teeth for much of the course.

On the other hand, numerous Albany riders finished the race at a sprint, including sophomores April Beall and Nicole Hempel, as did a number of riders from neighboring club El Cerrito. All of Albany's five sophomore girls finished in the top nine positions in their division. Other Cougars finished the race after crashes or near-misses, including JV rider and team captain Abegail Shores and sophomore Liam Bishop, each of whom finished in seventh position in their group.

NorCal is part of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (nationalmtb.org), which promotes, organizes, and regulates high school, cross-counry mountain biking events. The national organization got its start in 2009 here in northern California, the birthplace of mountain biking, and now includes 17 leagues in 16 states (California having two), with two more leagues in development.

If you're not familiar with mountain biking, you may be thinking of videos you have seen of riders in heavy helmets making extreme jumps and tearing along down steep slopes. Sunday's event was however a cross-country race, in which the riders had to climb every inch they got to ride down, completing a number of laps based on skill level. On this six-mile course, freshmen as young as 13 were pedaling twice around. Top-level high school riders often race over 20 miles through the hills.

None of the events could come about without another great feature of high school competitive mountain biking: volunteerism. Albany coach Daniel Santos has been at the helm of the Cougars team years beyond his own children's time at AHS, a completely voluntary effort. The team has five volunteer assistant coaches as well, none of whom has a child on the team, and depends on parent volunteers for everything from supervision during practices to race nutrition and race day set-up and clean-up.