The Mountain Bike team here at Fremont might go a bit unrecognized, so Hannah Bruce gives an insight about the whole mountain biking experience.
The team has been established since 2011 and includes both high school and junior high athletes with the opportunity to compete in various outdoor settings, while learning how to grow as a team as well as individually.
The Fremont team also became region champs in 2020 and are known for “having a great trail etiquette.” Every year the team comes together, putting in hours of labor to improve local trails in the area.
Add information about the places they compete in. This is also a great idea for photo opportunities. Insert photos of the trails they compete at (or at least the coolest ones).
Hannah Bruce who is a Senior at Fremont has been in the club for 4 years since she was in the 8th grade, even with no prior experience of what mountain biking was.
The interest for mountain biking came about from a friend. Bruce says, “I didn’t know anything about the mountain biking team, but one of my friends convinced me to go to a preseason practice…it was different than other typical school sports…it was a completely new experience for me.”
The team competes in five different races in Utah each season. The races are determined by skill and speed. The athletes are separated into 3 separate levels, like most sports where there’s a sophomore team, a jv team, and a varsity team.
There are different lengths and trails of each race. Bruce explains, “Races are generally about 10-15 miles total, depending on the category. Each race venue is unique in terms of distance, terrain and challenge, which makes racing a lot of fun.”
The team functions more as an individual sport, like cross country. Bikers compete against themselves most of the time and along the way they find even more things to improve on. How well they do might affect the team in the sense of scoring, but it’s all about self-discipline to reach their full potential.
Something Hannah has to prepare for the most in a race is to focus on being mentally ready more than physically, because of how individualized the competition can be. She says, “…at the end of the day I am responsible for my own performance”.
Even though it can be stressful, Hannah also mentions how rewarding it is in the end and that cheering on her teammates was the best and most memorable thing for her. Her number one goal was “to have fun…and really enjoy it”, as this was her last season where she could reflect on a sport so different yet so fulfilling.
