News: California High School Mountain Biking Surges in Popularity
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California’s high school mountain biking leagues kick off this year’s racing season with record-breaking turnouts, signaling a major surge in the sport’s popularity in the Golden State.
Southern California’s brand-spanking-new high school MTB league ushered in a new era for the sport last weekend with a strong turnout and stiff competition in its inaugural race, while its big-brother NorCal league drew an unprecedented turnout for its season-starting event.
“There were so many people, it was like being at a state championship soccer game—this was by far the most commotion we’ve ever had at a league race,” said NorCal league founder and director Matt Fritzinger of the season-opening race in Monterey, California, which attracted 415 high school mountain bikers from 33 schools, despite grey skies and rain. The record turnout represented a 15% increase over the 360 riders who showed up for the first race of the 2008 NorCal series.
“If we have a similar increase in numbers for next year’s season, we might have to start using school buses to get people to this race,” said Fritzinger.
For its part, the new SoCal Interscholastic Cycling League’s first-ever race, held at the Vail Lake Mountain Resort in Temecula, California, drew almost 100 riders from 14 teams, heralding the dawn of a new era for high school MTB in Southern California. Schools fielded both boys’ and girls’ varsity and junior varsity teams, and the level of competition seen along the 6-mile course winding through Temecula chaparral was formidable.
“Some of the kids in varsity really know how to ride, and many of them are already champing at the bit to race against the NorCal league,” said SoCal league president Quintin Easton, who championed the new league and coordinated the funding that came from his father-in-law Jim Easton, a SoCal native and president of Easton Sports, which recently created the Easton Sports Development Fund to give back to the interscholastic sporting community. “Parents, coaches and kids left the venue today with a real sense of how magical it is to have a league of their own.”
The early season successes of the leagues follow an expansion of the sport throughout the state, both in terms of participation and funding. While the new SoCal league has just this year formed high school teams following the NorCal model, the leagues have recently been given a big boost from three significant investments—two of which helped to propel the SoCal league into existence.
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