Jackie Hendrickson Photo

Four riders end season on podium

WINDHAM – On Saturday, June 8, the Galena Growlers – the area’s middle and high school level composite NICA Mountain Bike Team – traveled to Windham, New York and competed in the fifth and final race of the 2019 Season, the NICA New York State Championship Race.

Championship weekend started on Saturday once the team arrived for a special Girls Riding Together (GRiT) ride that was put together by Growlers’ assistant coach Tamara Tarbell – a Level III NICA coach and one of the New York GRiT coordinators.

Tarbell was able to have Georgia Gould, a female Olympic Mountain Biker and five-time National Mountain Bike Champion, to meet the girls in attendance and join for a ride out on the course. was “Georgia was on the same course that the girls were going to be riding on the next day, giving out pointers and working with the girls during the ride,” said Galena Growlers head coach Rob Baker. “It was truly something special for each one of them.”

Later in the day, the course was opened for preview ride and 16 Growlers’ riders went out and tested the hilly, technical course.

“As a state championship race should be, the course was one heck of a test for all 300-plus New York mountain bike kids,” said Baker. “The two-mile course was the same for everyone but the lap count changed at each level.”