Submitted Photo

ONEONTA – On Saturday and Sunday, May 18-19, the Galena Growlers traveled about 35 miles east to the City of Oneonta to compete in the Central New York Epic NICA Mountain Bike Race number three of the five-race NICA circuit.

The event was centered around the Oneonta High School, with a part of the course traversing the length of Oneonta’s Wilbur Park.

The middle school course was a loop about three and a half miles long consisting of challenging hill climbs, over twisty single track strewn with rock and slippery tree roots. All middle-schoolers would race two laps over the course.

The high school course was the over much the same terrain as the middle school course with an addition of about a mile of twisty single track through some pines with an additional hill climb.

Saturday morning, the Growlers spent the day helping the Oneonta and Cooperstown based Otsego Composite team set up the race course with the NICA New York staff.

Later in the day, there was a Girls Riding Together (GRiT) all girls ride, where about 35 girls went out on an hour ride that the Growler Girls participated in. Once the event concluded, the race course was open for course pre-ride to allow the riders to become familiar with the course.

At 9:30 a.m., the races began. As the day would go, 16 Growlers took to the trails, but 14 of the 16 finished the event.