The ETSU cycling team ETSU Ride competed last Saturday and Sunday in a collegiate mountain bike racing event hosted on campus. ETSU belongs to the Southeast mountain biking conference and has hosted a conference race for nine years in a row. The race kicked off the collegiate season in the region.

Students from ETSU competed against riders from 15 other schools, including universities as far away as Florida State and as close as Warren Wilson College.

One hundred sixty-seven riders competed in five events such as “cross-country” racing, “time trial,” “short track,” “downhill” and “dual slalom.”

Sophomore Geoff Fryer, who placed first in the slalom event, described short track racing “like lap-knockout Nascar.”

Downhill racing was described by Josh Davis, a digital media major, as similar to “suicide on crack.” Wilkinson added, “It’s basically a two-minute sprint down a hill as fast as you can go.”

In the race, four out of the five top riders in the slalom event were from ETSU.

“As a school, ETSU is known for their downhill and dual slalom dominance,” said Wilkinson, who placed second in slalom and fourth in the downhill race.

ETSU placed second in the overall division, behind Warren Wilson College.

“We’ve probably had the longest streak on campus for qualifying for nationals. We’ve gone to nationals every year that we’ve had the club,” said senior and race coordinator Jesse O’Hatnick.

“We’ve had a top three finisher on the slalom every year except for this past year,” said Fryer.

The cycling club maintains the trails on campus.

Every year Knox-Tenn Rental donates construction equipment. The cross-country trail alone takes around 400 hours of work and maintenance before the season starts, O’Hatnick said.

Wilkinson and Fryer contracted poison-ivy related injuries while weeding the cross-country course and the surrounding woods, removing the plant so that others would not be affected.

“The course is five miles of trails on campus, open to the public for trail riding,” said O’Hatnick. “We maintain them for people who want to walk, hike, jog, etc.”

ETSU Ride meets on Thursdays at 9 p.m. at Buck’s Pizza, located at 1701 W. State of Franklin Road.

For more information on the club, and for information on the on-campus trails e-mail ETSU Ride at ride_etsu@yahoo.com.

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