After two years of not racing, the mountain biking team returned this year better than ever. The team placed second overall at the Division 1 state championships held at the Trek headquarters in Waterloo. 

Elias Saigh, junior and varsity biker, won the individual state championship. Saigh won four out the the five total races of the season, and won the overall cumulative championship. The races are often split into categories: freshmen, JV2, JV3, and varsity. 

“Having last year off was really weird because I skipped two categories and went [straight] to varsity. I was racing with completely different people that I had never raced before,” Saigh said. “I didn’t have too many expectations going into it, but it went well, way better than I expected.”

Saigh’s success over the course of the season was pivotal in increasing Shorewood’s total point score. 

“Elias just kept on winning, which is what got us the most points,” said Santiago Muirhead, freshman.

The mountain biking team started off in 2013 as a middle school club with only a few members. The program has been expanding ever since, and last year many new bikers joined as other sports were cancelled because of the pandemic. Now, the team has around 90 students participating, from 6th through 12th grade. 

“We have a much bigger team, and most of that growth came from when there was the pandemic, because all the other spots were canceled so there were all these people with nothing else to do so they joined mountain biking,” said Maia Shimko, sophomore.

Though COVID affected last year’s season, this year the mountain bike team was able to return to its normal schedule. Practices happened once a week, during which middle and high schoolers would gather in Estabrook Park to bike to a planned destination. The middle and high schoolers would have two practices on their own each week as well.

 “Sometimes it would just be a ride to build up endurance and speed,” Shimko said.

For more specific workouts, however, the team often biked to Kern Park, which has a large hill as well as small trails that help build biking skill and technique.

The team started their first race of the state competition around noon on Saturday. 

“There was a girls-only pre-ride called GRiT (Girls Riding Together), which was from 11:30 to 12:30 and then there was pre-riding for anyone from one until 5:30,” Shimko said.

After all the events on Saturday had concluded, the team had a campout, where team members stayed overnight for the race the next day. 

“On Saturday night, we had a team dinner and a campfire chat and that’s when we talked about the course,” Shimko said. “That’s one of our fun team bonding moments.”

 Team bonding has been a big part of the season, as well as getting to know each other and spending time outdoors. The team is proud of their accomplishments this year.

“It’s not just about scoring points. It’s about getting out in nature riding a bike and [we had] a lot of fun,” said Shimko.