12/03/200 Press Release
High School Mountain Bikers Get Awesome Race Series
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, December 3, 2001
Contact: Matt Fritzinger fritz@berkeley.k12.ca.us Tel: (510) 325 6502 www.norcalhighracing.org
Berkeley, CA–The 2002 Northern California High School Mountain Bike Racing Series promises to be the proving grounds for high school bikers from Monterey to Arcata.
This will be the league's second season, building upon the success of last year's series. The league was organized by Berkeley High School and its mountain biking coach, algebra teacher Matt Fritzinger. The competitive league is part of Fritinger's plan to bring mountain biking into high schools throughout California as a healthy sport for both men and women.
The race series begins March 10, 2002 with the challenging Billycross race near Santa Rosa. It also includes the epic Sea Otter Classic, the Sizzler Classic, Bogg's Mountain Bash and the newly added Napa Valley Dirt Classic, and ends with the State Championships on May 12.
This year the race series has found needed support from the Nicole Reinhart Foundation. Nicole, a champion woman racer, died last year in a racing accident.
"It means a lot to me -- and the race series -- to be sponsored by Nicole's Fund," says Fritzinger. "Nicole was a friend and was enthusiastic in supporting my involvement with junior mountain bikers. She was truly a star and is greatly missed."
The race series is being promoted at schools throughout the state, thanks to a poster designed by Berkeley High freshman Nick Henderson-Nold, who won a poster contest sponsored by Gary Fisher Bicycles and Clif Bar. "The poster is central to promoting the series and it's great to see a student's work get printed and posted at schools and bike shops all over," Fritzinger says.
The excitement is already building for the 2002 series. New teams are forming and other teams are getting bigger and more organized. Last year the Berkeley High team was the only school team around, but the series brought out the competition. By the state championships last spring, dozens of loosely organized school teams had formed. Berkeley High won the race series but other schools were close behind -- like Salinas High School and Casa Grande High School in Petaluma. A team from Nevada Union High School earned a surprise victory at the championship event.
The National Off Road Bicycling Association (NORBA) has been supportive and provides a manual to help teams get started. Things have progressed quickly. The CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) is beginning to draw up the bylaws required to recognize mountain biking as an official team sport.
"I'm glad the support is growing," Fritzinger says. "It's great for juniors to have a safe, well-organized entry point into the world of cycling."