Taos Composite Team’s Final Race of the Season!
The Taos Composite Middle School Mountain Bike Team (plus 4 high schoolers) completed a fantastic season with a technically challenging race at Oak Flats near Tijeras, NM. The course throws the riders into a rocky and chunky section of trail just after the start. This section is tough and can create gaps between riders quickly if you are not clean through the first part. The course finishes with some fast and flowy sections and a tough little uphill step-up as you near the finish. The camping scene was great, complete with lots of families, trick or treating on bikes, star gazing, and stories around the campfire. Having 17 athletes and families always makes for a great weekend of camping. A huge THANK YOU to Ted Schupbach and Taos Veterinary Clinic for sponsoring this weekend of fun racing.
The 8th Grade Boys were the first riders of the day to tackle the challenge with Troy Edmiston and Case Cook taking full advantage of their skills. Both have excellent bike handling capabilities and the two of them clearly raced at their highest intensity yet this season. Case is very adept at smoothing out the lines and he enjoyed a 6th place finish followed by Troy in 7th (6-7!). Case grabbed 5th place overall for the season with his consistent results.
In the 7th Grade Boys race, Elliot Conn started pretty far back in the field and had to be patient as he worked his way up through the pack. Elliot also displayed some super strong skills as he passed people and was chasing and closing on the race leader. Elliot enjoyed his best result of the season finishing in 2nd place. This result was enough to earn him 5th place overall for the season. Malcolm Breier enjoyed his second race ever and rode super strong to finish 9th in a field of 23. Augustus Blankenhorn Johnston handled the technical terrain really well and had a solid race (17th).
The 6th Grade Boys event featured Bridger Smith and Elijah Blankenhorn Johnston. Both of these riders are in their first year of racing and both handled the technically challenging course extremely well. They both have learned to “Ride Your Ride” (our unofficial Team slogan) and were able to challenge themselves and finish strong in 6th and 8th.
Larka Schultz headed into the 8th Grade Girls race with the leaders jersey knowing that she was in a close battle to take the series title. Riders went off the line fast in the hopes of getting the “hole shot” ahead of the technical zone. Larka was riding in second when the rider in front of her fell and was injured. Larka stopped, helped get word to a course marshal, and stayed with the injured athlete until helped arrived. Larka knew that her competitor’s well-being was more important than the race and she displayed the integrity of our community. Once the racing resumed, Larka went on to win and secure the season title. Larka’s season was excellent preparation for her move to the high school team next year…she’s ready. We were all happy to learn later in the day that the racer checked out ok after she was transported.
Kalia Velarde had a bit of a rough start and was not leading as she rode out of sight after the first technical section. The next time we saw her, she was leading the 7th Grade Girls field with a strong performance as she took another dominant win. June Thornton was chasing strong for the entire race, digging deep and finishing in 3rd. Kalia and June both stepped onto the overall series podium in 1st and 3rd places, respectively. Amaya Dean (6th), Lila Delany (7th) (6-7!), and Olivia Seim (10th) rounded out the impressive Taos Composite showing in the 7th grade Girls event. All three of these riders showed great improvement in their skills throughout the season. Ama Mithoefer was still out with a dreaded playground injury and her 7th grade peers rode for her in this final race of the season.
A few High school athletes came out for one more race with Abby Thornton confidently winning the JV 1 Girls race. In the JV 1 Boys race, Ryan Edmonds and Silas Conn were called up way in the back, something that definitely had a negative effect on their ability to get near the front. Instead, they had fun and rode close to each other for the entire race and ended up sprinting each other at the finish, giving everyone some fun entertainment. They finished in 6th and 7th places (6-7!). Jonah Gilroy raced in the JV 2 race (15th) as he really wanted one more race after only getting to do 3 of the 5 Colorado League races.
One more time, THANK YOU to all of the athletes, parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, sponsors, and coaches for making this season the BEST EVER! We hope to ride with everyone again in the spring, in the meantime, it’s time to pray for snow!
