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Gilmer Middle/High School rider, Jake Hoek, hammers it home to the finish line during a Georgia League race.
Racing over the 5-mile Allatoona Creek course “Is like riding over the very bones of the Earth, with exposed roots and rocks requiring riders to bring their best technical riding skills and endurance,” noted coach Larry Alonso.
The Gilmer Cartecay and Gilmer High School youth mountain bike teams did precisely that during the Georgia League’s second race of the season Sept. 21-22.
Team Cartecay placed fifth out of 35 teams and is now ranked sixth in the state, while GHS placed 13th for the day out of 26 Division I teams.
Twenty-six racers from the combined Gilmer Cartecay team enjoyed 10 top-20 finishes. Noteworthy performances were turned in by Clare Moore and Evangelina Giet, who placed third and fourth, respectively, in the seventh-grade girls division.
Emma Moore and Skylar Ramey finished 6th in their heats in the JV I and freshman girls divisions, while Tempest Giet and Cadence Mohon took seventh in JV I and JV II categories, respectively.
Greg Calabretta competed in the eighth-grade division and placed 29th, while Jaden Calabretta was 25th among freshman boys in his heat. Both faced fields that consisted on 100 competitors.
The Gilmer team represented the county well in leadership roles, Alonso noted, saying, “Athlete Lorenzo Alonso played the Star Spangled Banner on violin, a combined team effort leading worship during the Fellowship of Christian Athletes service on Sunday prior to the races, and eighth-grade rider Louisa Alonso served as a program ambassador and mentor for the league’s Girls Riding Together (GRiT) program.”
The Gilmer Cartecay Team will attend race No. 3 at Bartram Trails in Milledgeville Oct. 5-6.
(By Gilmer Cartecay Youth Mountain Bike Team)