National Mountain Bike Championships Archives

October 21st, 2022 by JoAnn Cranson

Hi, my name is Charlotte Rosinski and I’m from Highland, Michigan. I’m currently 14 years old and in 9th grade at Milford High School with a few other members from Team Athletics Mentors Junior Development (TAMJD). I’ve been cycling since I was in 3rd grade, but I guess I’ve been on a bike longer than the 3rd grade. I would say that the spark for cycling really started the summer after 3rd grade, when I joined my school district’s mountain bike club where I was able to learn skills that have stuck with me and made many friends that have also stuck with me.

I have raced with MiSCA since I started mountain biking on the Huron Valley United Racing team, and in the 2021 season I achieved the Advanced Middle School Girls Champion title. I’m currently racing on the HVUR Varsity team. This is my first year on TAM Junior Development, and I joined because many of my friends on HVUR had either joined or suggested that I should join the team. I was really drawn to the team because I felt like I had continuously been growing as a cyclist, but I really needed people to help direct my growth which I feel the TAMJD team has really helped with.

My goals for races overall this year are to try to learn a bit more about racing and place well. To be more specific, I want to do well in the elite category at Peak2peak and try to win my age group at Iceman. Similar to the non-MiSCA races this year I want to place 3rd overall and top 5 per year, but I also want to treat this year as a learning experience. I’ve been racing the Varsity category as a freshman with people who are a few years older and I guess you could say “wiser” in racing than me, so I’m really just excited to be racing people that I looked up to just a couple of years ago.

It’s hard for me to pick a favorite riding place but I would probably say either Pontiac Lake, Highland, or any of the trails the team rode in Colorado during the Fort Lewis College camp we attended this summer . My favorite race that I have done is probably the USA Cycling MTB Nationals or the USAC/UCI Englewood races that I, and the members of the Junior Development team, visited this year. My favorite thing about riding is that it has made me closer with a lot of people and I have loved the places I have gotten to go to that I probably would never have gone to, like Brevard, North Carolina where we had our TAMJD training camp in March this year.

My favorite things about racing go hand-in-hand with simply riding, but with that I have loved seeing how much I have improved over time and all of the opportunities I have gotten just from racing that I am so grateful for. This year with cycling I have been able to do my first road race and gravel races, and I would really like to try to do more gravel and road racing because so far I’ve really enjoyed them and their atmosphere. Racing has become an outlet for me and I’m so grateful for the things I’ve learned about myself from it, like the fact that I am very competitive and won’t give up, I have to use proper nutrition, and I like to be very talkative with my competitors/friends after races, not before. Thanks to TAMJD, I have noticed growth in my riding and racing that I don’t think I could’ve accomplished as quickly alone.

Fort Lewis Camp and the MTB National Championships

October 10th, 2022 by JoAnn Cranson

By James Meyer

I learned a lot during my 2 weeks in Colorado, at the Fort Lewis College Nationals prep camp, and racing the National Mountain Bike championships in Winter Park. At camp I got more experience falling and riding trails with lots of fast elevation gain and loss, which helped me improve my high speed descending and confidence at speed, as well as get used to the intense nature of the Colorado trails. I also got to meet and talk to riders from across the country to learn about their riding style and experience.

We also got to meet multiple people with cycling centered careers including the following:

Mechanic, who talked about what he does for the racers
Nutritionist, who talked about how best to fuel for a ride based on the type and length
Engineer, who talked about his job designing bikes and the best ways to get a job in the cycling industry
Pro cyclist, who discussed her races and her sponsors.

Spending a whole week with my teammates from Team Athletic Mentors Junior Development strengthened our relationship and getting to be dorm-mates with them was a great experience that I will gladly do next year if I get the chance.

At Nationals, I learned that I need to push myself harder to get to the front of the pack at the start of the race before the single track so I won’t get slowed down needing to pass later in the race. I also noticed how much my lap times improved each time I pre-rode the loop and sessioned features. The elevation was a problem at 9000+ feet as the air is much thinner than around 900 feet and I could really feel it while adjusting in the first few rides.

By the races, I had gotten over the altitude sickness but still wasn’t fully acclimated so it was hard for me to push myself to my limits. At the end of the first of three 5 mile laps, my one water bottle fell off my bike on a chunky descent and I didn’t have anyone to give a bottle hand off. I eventually picked someone else’s up off the trail at the top of the climb on the last lap as I had no water for a lap and a half. I could feel my performance greatly decreasing and that was one of my first experiences that really highlighted the effects of dehydration and the importance of being prepared for anything.

Watching the rest of my team race and cheering them on was one of my favorite parts of each day. I’m lucky to be on a team with such great friends so I can be happy for them when they do well in a race and support them in any way I can if they don’t place well or as well as they wanted. Even after all of our races are done, it’s fun watching the other races with them, especially the pros. It’s crazy seeing the fastest racers in the country race the same course that you just raced because of how impossibly fast and they ride the technical features that are hard for a lot of people just to complete.

The whole experience inspired me and my teammates at Athletic Mentors Junior Development to go back next year and try
Nationals again.

Meet Charlotte Rosinski

Fort Lewis Camp and the MTB National Championships