Young mountain bikers find a ‘pretty cool’ race course in Modesto’s riverside park
Hundreds of teenage mountain bikers discovered Saturday that Modesto has a quite a racing venue, right under a freeway and railroad.
They came to Tuolumne River Regional Park for races in the NorCal Interscholastic Cycling League. The gathering concludes Sunday morning, with a forecast for gusty wind once again.
This is Modesto’s first time hosting a league event, which drew riders from 15 central California counties. They do one to three circuits of the five-mile route, depending on age.
The course starts near the Ninth Street bridge and zigzags out to the area of John Thurman Field in west Modesto. Along the way, riders pass under Seventh Street, Highway 99 and the Union Pacific Railroad trestle and take on numerous moderate hills.
Fiona Henry of Oakland finished 16th in the junior varsity girls race with a time of 49 minutes, 30 seconds. The race covered 10 miles in two circuits.
“I thought the course was pretty cool,” Henry said. “When we first got here and we were under a freeway and a bridge, I was kind of like, ‘A mountain bike race here?’... Riding the course was actually pretty fun.”
She attended with the Oakland Technical High School team. Several other high schools sent teams, while some riders took part as “composite” teams from multiple campuses.
The latter type includes the Modesto Composite High School Mountain Bike Racing Team. Also known as the Dust Devils, the team was founded in 2019 by Darin Jesberg, a deputy fire chief for the city.
The Devils got even dustier than usual Saturday thanks to the wind blowing across the course, most of it unpaved paths across open fields.
“It’s going to be tough, especially on the straightaway, when you have headwinds,” team member Emiliano Contreras said before his 15-mile race. The Modesto High School junior went on to finish eighth at 58:01.
Close to 1,000 cyclists were expected over the two days. The races took place in lesser-known parts of the park, which stretches for seven river miles between Mitchell and Carpenter roads.
“We really see this as wonderful for the park,” said Laurie Smith, director of parks, recreation and neighborhoods for Modesto. She was on hand with Mayor Sue Zwahlen and other leaders.
Middle-schoolers have six races Sunday, starting between 10:30 and 11:50 a.m. All are a single five-mile circuit.
Spectators should bike to the park themselves if possible, because parking is limited. Morton Boulevard is closed to through traffic between Ninth Street and Yosemite Boulevard into Sunday afternoon.
Modesto is the third regional of the season, following races near Snelling in February and Monterey last month. Regional semifinals will be April 30 and May 1 and the finals May 21, all near Clear Lake.
Regional results so far are at www.norcalmtb.org. The racers come from a zone stretching from Tuolumne County in the northeast to San Luis Obispo County in the southwest.
This story was originally published April 10, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
