SALEM – On May 18, the Galena Growlers Composite Mountain Bike Team traveled three hours northeast to a wet and muddy Salem, NY for its second race of the 2025 Spring NICA NY Mountain Bike season.

We had wind, mud, and rain on Sunday, but the smiles and looks of accomplishment on all the riders' faces said it all. We had fun!

10 Growler kids traveled to Salem, with nine seasoned racers, and one first timer. It was a great day of racing for the Galena Growlers, with all 10 riders finishing their respective races, and five Growlers making the podium. The venue was a large family farm out in the middle of nowhere, where 20 NICA-NY teams arrived on Saturday and raced on Sunday.

The team traveled out on Saturday for a course pre-ride. Both the Middle School and High School courses were ridden, and the trails were great; a little slick in places but overall great. This was a new venue for the team and NICA-NY. The course was a lot of Colgate University that we ride. After pre-ride, it rained hard starting at 5 p.m. and rained all night, and throughout the day on Sunday.

The Middle School Girls' race started without rain, and the course was in the best condition of the day. Three laps for the MS girls with two steep hill climbs rewarded with a fast downhill section leading back to the bridge into the flowing single-track part of the course.

Sunday started with our three Growler middle school girls racing first. Eighth grader Margaret Kemnah from South New Berlin (Unadilla Valley), eight grader Mckenzie Hagenbuch from Norwich and seventh grader Cassidy Murphy (Homeschool) raced in their respective categories – a 1.5 mile lap / 3 lap race. This was Kenzie’s 1st race for 2025. For Cassidy, it was her second time racing NICA. All three girls ended up on the podium, with Cassidy finishing in 3rd place 7th grade girls (out of 8 riders). For a second time out of 2 races, Margaret won the 8th grade girls race and Mckenzie rode to a strong 4th place finish (out of 7 riders). All three girls rode great races on a wet, soggy, slippery race course. Margaret maintains the Points Leader going in to race 3 that will take place on June 1st. Cassidy is in 4th place overall now going in to race 3. All three girls are strong XC mountain bike riders, with great skills. They love mud and it showed at this race! All three have been training and working hard.

The afternoon race would tell a different story. “Standing in the rain, with their heads hung low, couldn't get a ticket; it was a sold-out show. They heard the roar of the crowd, they could picture the scene." The three laps for the MS categories had it all: sliding, running up hills, down hills, and a muddy finish.

The next Growlers to hit the race course were two of our Growler middle school boys; seventh grader Eli Mondics of Sherburne (Homeschool) and seventh grader Uriah Bugyi (Norwich) – which this muddy venue was his first ever NICA race. Eli raced to a seventh place finish and Uriah finished 16th (out of 24 riders) on the 3-lap 1.5 mile course. The course already had the Middle and High school girls out on it. So, it was just a bit more muddy and greasy out there – they had to all hop off their bikes to make it up the first hill on the course – with it now raining, the conditions just worsened lap by lap. Eli’s moved in to 4th place overall on the season in the big seventh grade boys category.

Following the middle school boys’ races, the high school boys hit the race course and took us home and probably had the trickiest course to race on. These three and four-lap races tested each rider, but in the end, everyone finished their laps with high fives and big cheers in abundance. 

The just under 3 mile race course was a pure sloppy mess – with the greasy uphill just in to the woods taken out of the course. The Growlers had four high school boys racing, one racer in each of the high school race categories, Varsity (4-laps), Junior Varsity (3-laps), Sophomore and Freshman (each 3-laps). In the Varsity race, South New Berlin’s (Unadilla Valley) Alex Kemnah raced to a fifth place podium finish (out of 11 riders) in his 4-lap race. Alex crashed at the start, getting tangled up with Chenango Shredder’s Jaxson Calice. He was last in to the woods. He raced a strong, smart race and his climbing back to a fifth place finish is excellent. In the JV race, Damien Murphy (Homeschooler) finished in 10th place in his 3-lap race (out of 27 riders). The Growlers were represented by Amon Oliver of Norwich in the Sophomore boy’s race (3-laps), where he again finished on the podium in fourth place (out of 16 riders). Finishing out the high school Growler racers in the Freshman race was eighth grader Malakai Hagenbuch (Norwich) who raced his 3-lap race to finish in ninth place (out of 29 riders). Great job to all four of our high school boys who had the roughest ride being out there for over an hour racing in the pouring rain.

It was wet. It was slippery. And, It was muddy! All 10 riders started, and all 10 finished their race. Plenty crashed, but no injuries happened. To have five podiums at the end of the day – our coaches are so proud!!

Today was a bike handling / skills and survival race. Three or four laps in these elements and conditions – tough. The bikes were covered in mud. So were the kids.

Out of 19 high school teams, the Growlers HS team finished in 10th place. Still racing without a high school girl, the team scored best score out of the possible three scoring combinations of (B=Boy, G-Girl) BBBG, BBGG, BGGG) scoring BBBG where the G = zero points. It always hurts team-wise not having a girl racer.

The Growlers now have Memorial Day weekend off and then get back to racing on June 1 for their third race of the season down at Lippman Park in Wawarsing, NY. The Growlers want to send out a thank you to all our sponsors and the Chenango County Youth Bureau for their support, and the Chenango Greenway Conservation organization in working with the Youth Bureau on behalf of the Growlers. Also, to the Greenway and the Rock Quarry crew for keeping the trail system improving, and to the County Highway and Greenway with all the help on Upper Ravine road potentially helping to make for a better race venue in the future. The Growlers would love to host another NICA race here in the future.

-Information from the Galena Growlers