Manti Mountain Bike team
takes 24th place in competition
By Max Higbee
Staff writer
Nov. 23, 2017
CEDAR CITY—The Manti Mountain Bike team, now in its third year, competed in the 2017 State Championships of the Utah High School Cycling League.
At the event, was held in Cedar City, the weekend of Nov. 3-4, there were 11 different classes of events, divided by age, gender, and division. They all raced the same course, a 5.8-mile trail outside of Cedar City with about 350 feet of elevation gain, with the different classes of racers staggered throughout the weekend.
Manti had racers competing in the Boys’ freshman, sophomore, and JV races, and the Girls’ freshman.
In their division of 50 teams, the Manti bikers took 24th place with 2080 points, just one point behind the 23rd place North Davis Composite team. Riley Oberg led the team points wise, who scored 414 points with a 12th place finish in the D2 Freshmen Boys’ race.
The Manti Mountain Bike Team is a high school biking team that is independent of the local schools, but caters to students from Manti High School and Ephraim High and Middle Schools. It is an affiliate of the Utah High School Cycling League, which is in turn organized under the National Interscholastic Cycling Association. The team was founded in 2015, two years after the league’s 2012 founding.
According to the Manti team’s website, it “is unique within organized individual and team sports; there are no tryouts. Regardless of your fitness, endurance, or skill level, if you’re ready to commit, you’re on the team. You ride, you race—there is no bench. We value and promote individual as well as team excellence.”
Steve Gerber, one of the team coaches, says that “the consistent attendance of the cyclers and the followers of the participants show the popularity of mountain bike cycling in Utah.”
Indeed, the Utah High School League is the largest affiliate of its national counterpart. “And there is a growing membership of the Manti Mountain Bike Team each year.”
