APRIL NORCAL RACES AND SEA OTTER CLASSIC
Contributed by Zach Waymire, Reno-Tahoe Junior Cycling Team member, and Silver Sage Sports and Fitness Lab sponsored athlete. Enjoy the read…
The Reno-Tahoe Junior Cycling team’s race schedule was filled for the month of April. Basically almost every weekend was filled with a race. The first stop of the second weekend of April was the NorCal High School Race in Petaluma, CA. Every high school racer was out of school enjoying spring break. The Reno-Tahoe Composite team met up on Friday and headed down to pre-ride the NorCal League’s new race venue.
Most of the Reno-Tahoe Composite team all crammed into the team Suburban and headed down to round four of the NorCal High School Series. When we arrived to the new venue, Five Springs Ranch, all the Reno-Tahoe Composite team headed out to check out the course. The team also had to finish a work out with tempo intervals and an hour and a half of riding. When the team was finished with their workout, they all knew it was going to be one of NorCal’s fastest races yet. The trail was about 3 feet wide and flat with no rocks in sight. It was very fast with some loose and tight switch backs all throughout the course.
The day of the race, the boys were surprised to hear their race laps were bumped down a lap. Because of the girl’s times for each lap, NorCal took off a lap for the boy’s races. So, the Sophomore Reno-Tahoe Composite team guys only did two laps and the Varsity guys did only four laps. Right there the team all knew this race was going to be a sprint right out of the starting line. When the whistle went off for the Sophomore D2 boy’s start, every Sophomore was sprinting for about forty nine minutes to an hour. The race was extremely fast. Passing was easy on the climbs with the three foot wide trail, but passing on the descent was harder because of the tight and loose dirt, but had to be done to place well.
Freshmen girls went off an hour earlier than usual at 9:15 doing 2 laps. In the Freshmen girls category, the Reno-Tahoe Composite team had racers Camille Syben and Aubrey Milner racing.
Camille Syben finished 2nd with a time of 1:00:21.
Aubrey Milner finished 3rd with a time of 1:00:53.
Sophomore D2 boys went off at 10:45, also an hour earlier than usual. racing 2 laps. In the Sophomore D2 category the team had Austin Smith, Tate Meintjes and Zach Waymire racing.
Zach Waymire finished 2nd with a time of 49:19.
Austin Smith finished 6th with a time of 51:13.
Tate Meintjes finished 9th with a time of 52:40.
Varsity Boys Started at 12:20pm doing 4 laps. In the very competitive Varsity category, the team had Dylan Syben and Ian Meintjes racing.
Dylan Syben finished 4th with a time of 1:42:04.
Ian Meintjes finished 19th with a time of 1:59:38, showing all of us the hardest part of mountain biking is when you’re just having the worst race and your brain is telling you to give up. Ian showed us all something we should be proud of with overcoming that mental aspect of not giving up. He displayed something we should all learn from with not ever giving up.
After the race we all sat around the podium to celebrate everyone’s awards. When the D2 team points came around, the team was hoping to get that 3rd place trophy again. When we heard that it was another team on the 3rd place podium, we all thought we didn’t make it. But to all of our surprise, we actually moved up the podium to 2nd place getting a Chicken Trophy! (Hint: Petaluma is the chicken capital.)
