Come join the Drake High School Mountain Bike Team for an outdoor showing of SingleTrack High!
Many kids in America stop riding bikes in high school. Riding through puddles is no longer cool. Two wheels get traded in for four.
But for hundreds of kids in Northern California, the ride never stops…it gets faster. These are the student-athletes of the NorCal High School Mountain Bike League. They come from the mountains, the suburbs, and the city. Some ride carbon fiber race bikes, others old steel clunkers. They ride to win, to finish, or just to escape. For six weekends every spring, they don their school colors, roll up to the start line, and fly.
Both inspiring and touching, the documentary addresses the question of what mountain biking can do for the mind, body, and social lives of today’s teens by following six diverse student-athletes throughout a season of racing.
Where: Central Field (Contratti Baseball Field) in Fairfax
When: Friday, May 31st at 9pm, ticket sales begin at 8:30pm
Tickets $10, cash or credit card
Featuring a local Fairfax rider
Proceeds go to Drake High School Mountain Bike Team
A hearty congratulations to everyone for a job well done, and an emotional weekend at Boggs as Coach Paul announces his retirement after nearly a decade of coaching Drake MTB since the inception of the team. Coaches report and race reports below, and visit our Facebook for lots of other photos and stories!
COACH’S RACE REPORT
Bogg’s Mountain, Race 5 2013, NorCal League Championship
Boggs Mountain State Demonstration Forest has, for many years, has been one of my favorite destinations for mountain biking related activities. Even before I got involved with Drake MTB this was a place where we would spend many a beautiful day marveling at the tall pines and flowing single track that was pretty much void of traffic and politics.
In our 4th event for 2013, “Ride At The Raceway” 4/7/13 at Laguna Seca, Drake MTB put in a powerful performance resulting in a tie with Salinas High for the #1 spot going into the NorCal final later in the month, then the State Championship in May. Congratulations to everyone on excelling despite some extra challenges!!
The first thing that comes to mind from this weekends race is “Against All Odds”. It seems that every race this season has been an unbelievable show of determination and strength from an incredible group of riders who continually give each race their best shot.
I was reminded yet again of the respect and awesome status our Team has, from an unlikely source, in my conversation with Coach Robert from Salinas. When congratulating him on what appeared to be a race winning performance, he was not too certain of their victory and said, ” You guys are Champions and Champions always find a way to win.”
Although it turned out that they did indeed come in first, given the circumstances, we really came up big at this race. Going in we knew it was going to be a tough race as we were going to have to pick up a lot of slack from the absence of Leah Lindt-White, Lucas Newcomb, Eleanor Waterhouse and Galen Pogoncheff, all of them big point earners for the Team, so here is how it played out.
Race #3 for 2013 at Granite Bay brought together all of NorCal for the first time this season, and was a great day for the Pirates. NorCal Results here; race reports, comments and pictures below!
Once again the sun was shining on Drake MTB as we entered our first full League race of the season on Sunday, March 24 2013.
Having the split League races the first two times was a bit confusing in relation to getting a real feel for where we were with the entire League. Over 700 riders representing 55 High Schools is a tall order not only for the Teams but for the NorCal League as well and my hat goes off to the League for pulling this race off in a very professional manner. What was really incredible was the fact that Drake MTB pulled out yet another win on a day we struggled a little. The placement results were down a bit given the larger fields but the point distribution between the increased number of schools spread things out a bit.
Our second race of the season was yet another beautiful day. The wonderful, yet somewhat bizarre weather pattern this year has caused us to cancel only one practice this season and left us with two beautiful race days.
This race brought us a new venue for the first time in a couple of years. The course started near the Folsom City Zoo and wrapped around a baseball field and a rodeo arena before dipping into the “Sherwood Forest” for a bit of technical woop-ti-doos before climbing up on the ridge next to Folsom Prison with stunning views of the American River before dipping back down to the levee and up to the ball field. Super fun and super fast.
Race #1 for 2013 is history and Drake MTB rocked Granite Bay! Coach Paul’s race report is here, as is one from Allie Stanley. A special congratulations to the Girls squad on everyone finishing Top 10 in their categories!
It was a beautiful early Spring weekend at Folsom Lake as we rolled the mighty Drake MTB trailer into the Pit Zone at 7:30. I had a great feeling about the day that started the night before when we had the largest turn out for a Team dinner at Buca di Beppo ever. Now that is saying something seeing as how this is the smallest team we have had since starting this tradition. The parent volunteers and friends of Drake MTB had the awesome Drake MTB Pit Zone setup in no time as we unloaded our newly organized trailer and got the grills and stove cranked up.
Ayyyy, mateys! Here are the 31 hard scrabblin’ two-wheeled land-lubbers who will be representin’ the Drake Pirates speedin’ down the dusty trails this year!
Race #1 for 2013 is history and Drake MTB rocked Granite Bay! Coach Paul’s race report is here, as is one from Allie Stanley. A special congratulations to the Girls squad on everyone finishing Top 10 in their categories!
