BBA Mountain Bikers Overcome Challenges en Route to Successful Season
In its sixth year as a varsity sport, the Burr and Burton Academy Mountain Bike season was in jeopardy due to COVID-19. The Northern New England High School Mountain Bike League, which consists of teams from Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, determined that it was not safe for students to travel to other states and, therefore, canceled the race season.
The situation looked grim until Head Coach Jon Mowry took the reigns. Recognizing that if there were no races, students would have less motivation to train hard, he began contacting local schools and was able to construct a race schedule that included six other local teams. With additional precautionary measures to ensure rider safety, the season was on.
This year’s team was paced by seven seniors: Grace Distasio, Devan Kajah, Sarah Hyde, Brett Torres, Wesley Dennan, Jonathan Pickarski and Justin Fusco. Their valuable leadership was especially critical this year due to the added restrictions caused by COVID. “This could have been a pretty chaotic year” said Coach Mowry, “but the leadership that we had from our seniors set a high bar for expectations and, at the same time, kept the atmosphere light and enjoyable.”
BBA hosted two races this year, the first on the Slate Valley trails in Poultney and the second, a Halloween relay race, on the school’s mountain bike trails. These trails are the brainchild of former student Noah Capola who designed and led the construction of the trails as a Mountain Campus semester final project.
The Mountain Bike team has grown every year and finished this season with thirty five riders. Coach Mowry believes that one of the reasons behind the success of the team is the number of coaches that have helped out. He says, “The logistics of having around 35 athletes of varying levels on the trails and 35 bikes to transport day to day can be daunting and it wouldn’t have been possible without the depth of help that I had.” Mowry was aided by faculty members Chris Nolan, Jen Lalor, Andy Dahlstrom and Jonathan Bigelow, BBA parents Jim Swartzentruber, Ben Pickarski and Ed Torres, and volunteers Cindy Mowry, Noah Capola, Tony Bailey, John Ogden, Mike Gayda, George Whalen and Henry Miles. He added, “It’s also a big advantage to have a variety of coaches riding with the kids as each coach sees different things, offers advice on different aspects of their riding, and pushes the kids in different ways.”
Looking to the future, the team wants to recruit new members. No experience is necessary and the team has been given several bikes that are available to anyone who needs them. Anyone interested is encouraged to contact Jon Mowry at jmowry@burrburton.org.
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Burr and Burton Academy
57 Seminary Avenue
PO Box 498
Manchester, VT 05254
Phone: 802.362.1775, Fax: 802.362.0574
