LIBERTY – The Galena Growlers High and Middle School Composite Mountain Bike Team traveled down to Liberty, NY to race at Walnut Mountain Park – the NICA Hill Climber Cross Country race.

The town park was filled to the brim with 26 NICA teams attending the race that started and finished in park’s main infield, with a fast-starting area that quickly disappeared into the park’s single track.

Raining all through the night before Sunday’s race, 350 kids with another 100 coaches on bikes headed for the trails to pre-ride the course. The warm up made for some grease-like trails with a lot of mud to compete on when it came to race time. 

The day started out with the freshman boys followed by the girls. In the boys race, the Growlers had the Thompson Twins – Andrew and Dan – who tackled and conquered the muddy course without mishap. Andrew completed the race as 30th racer to finish, which good for 329 team points. His brother Dan followed him in, finishing just one place behind Andrew. His place picked up 326 team points.

“Both Dan and Andrew had a great race,” said Growlers head coach Rob Baker. “They were working hard over the two-lap race course for the freshman.”