RNC mountain bikers ready for home cooking at Tesomas

Over the past decade or so, the Rhinelander Northwoods Composite mountain bike team has raced all over the state of Wisconsin as a member of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Cycling League. The program has had success in that time, taking home a number of team and individual state titles, but there is one thing the team has never done — race at home. 

The Hodags will finally get that opportunity on Sunday as they host Round 5 of the six-round WICL season. The event is the Hodag Hustle Mountain Bike Festival at Tesomas Scout Camp in Pine Lake. It’s a three-day festival leading up to Sunday’s races, and it’s expected to attract in excess of 1,000 middle school and high school riders from around the state and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

“It’s unlike any other middle school/high school sport out there, in my opinion — the amount of people, the stoke,” RNC head coach Jon Lester said this week. “You’re talking there are going to be 1,000 athletes, maybe 1,200 here. That’s going to mean upwards of 4,000 spectators. It’s going to be a sight to behold, for sure. And the racing will be fast-paced.”

Action will take place all day Sunday, with the varsity girls leading the way to the starting line at 8:15 a.m. Different categories will be going off throughout the day and the event will conclude with awards shortly after the middle school divisions wrap up around 4 p.m.

RNC will have two of the 98 teams in Sunday’s field. Because of the team’s geographical make-up, its split into two factions by the league for scoring purposes. One team is comprised of riders who attend the School District of Rhinelander and another is made up from those who come in from surround districts such as Three Lakes, Northland Pines and Lakeland Union. 

Sunday’s course will be a bit of a throwback for the WICL riders. Camp Tesomas is no stranger to the mountain bike scene, as it played host to Wisconsin Off Road Series (WORS) for a number of years, but coach Lester said the race trails have been dormant since about 2015. 

“It was fun uncovering some of the single-track three weeks ago that had eight or nine years of pine needles and leaves on it,” said Lester, who was one of the competitors in the last WORS event at Tesomas. “It was still under there, just as pristine as could be. It was really cool.”

The course includes challenging single-track trails built and maintained by the Rhinelander Area Silent Trials Association (RASTA) and Bike ’N Boards, in concert with camp officials. Lester said it has taken plenty of leg work to get the trails ready for race weekend.

“We’ve been working hard on this course — the athletes, the coaches, even community members,” he said. “Bikes ’N Boards, RASTA, they’ve all been helping us out as well as Elvis, the camp director. It just all of us put together. I think we have 200 to 250 hours of trail work. It’s pretty cool to see.”

Lester said riders will expect more of an “old-school” feel to this weekend’s course, with many of the trails and obstacles constructed either by hand or by nature. It’s a technical track that features more than 80 feet of elevation change and several climbs and descents over the main 5-plus-mile loop. Riders will race the loop anywhere between one and four laps, depending on age and ability.

    Rhinelander’s Holden Schmitz rides on the trails during RNC mountain bike team practice at Tesomas Scout Camp in Pine Lake Monday, Sept. 30. Schmitz, a junior from Rhinelander, currently sits 23rd in the WICL varsity boys’ standings. (Jeremy Mayo/River News)
  

“I think it will be a longer race, more challenging,” said RHS junior Holden Schmitz, who will be taking on the full jaunt of more than 20 miles in the varsity boys’ division. “It will be more of a pedal-y course. It’s not a super-fast one. It’s more technical.”

Added seventh-grader Jase Houg, “A lot of action. They’re fun trails, they’re difficult but, at the same time, you can power through them. There’s a lot of double track where you can pass on but, at the same time the single track’s pretty fun.”

Sunday’s race will be a rarity and a welcome luxury for the Hodags. Prior to this weekend, the closest thing the team ever got to a “home” race was a few years back when the league raced at Nine Mile Forest in Wausau. Otherwise, race weekends are typically filled with long drives and camping. Other than Tesomas, the nearest venues on this year’s WICL schedule were Telemark Resort in Cable and Lowe’s Creek in Eau Claire — both more than 2 1/2 hours away from Rhinelander. 

“I’m going to be so happy to wake up in my own bed and not have to drive 4 hours home Sunday after the race,” coach Lester said. “All the athletes are stoked about that too, and coaches. We’re just excited to host.”

Using the scout camp’s land, Lester said this weekend’s festival will have a decidedly Northwoods feel to it. 

“We’re racing around Crystal Lake and it’s right here,” he said. “We have a beach. We have the pine trees, the leaves are changing colors. The camping’s unique. Usually we’re parking in a field and everyone’s in a line. We have all remote campsites in the woods. They’re, hopefully, going to have a memorable experience. I hope it’s a success and they all enjoy this and we can continue it.”

As fort the team itself this year. Both RNC squads are lower on numbers in the high school divisions, which has resulted in some lower finishes in Division 2 events. Teams may race as many riders as they wish, but the four scoring riders must include at least one female and at most three males. Points are accumulated by finishing position in each race and weighted to favor those riding in the upper-tier varsity and JV-3 divisions.

The RNC squad currently sits 21st and RHS is 40th out of 71 teams in D2 through four rounds. 

So far, the team has had only one female rider compete this season. That’s Three Lakes senior Macy Lester, who currently is 26th in the varsity girls’ division after missing this past Sunday’s race at Englewood Farms. The league factors a riders best four finishes of the season for the final standings. 

Holden Schmitz rides varsity for the RHS squad and it currently 23rd out of 77 riders in that classification.

“It’s really hard. There are some really, really good people and it’s a long race,” he said.

Other high school riders who have competed in more than one race so far this year include Cody Price (7th, JV-3 boys), William Gregersen (17th, JV-3 boys). Everett Smith (66th, JV-2 boys) and Conley Meyer (46th, freshman boys) for the RNC squad, and Henry Schmitz (11th, freshman boys) for RHS. 

“Our high schoolers are doing really well, too,” coach Lester said. “We have Holden on varsity for the first time. He’s doing really well in a tough varsity field and Macy’s in a tough varsity field too. Oh my gosh, the women are exceptional this year. It’s crazy. It’s really cool to see. There’s some really good competition this year.”

The RHS squad was 34th and the RNC squad, without Macy Lester, was 35th on Sunday at Englewood Farms. Holden Schmitz was 23th in the varsity boys’ race, Henry Schmitz was 11th for the freshman boys while Michael Tredupp and Nathan Cordy were 22nd and 51st, respectively, in the JV-2 boys category for RHS. Price and Gregersen were ninth and 23rd, respectively, in the JV3 boys’ race while Meyer was 30th in the freshman boys’ race. 

The Hodags also have a strong group of seventh-grade boys. Hans Sommer has won all three of his starts in that division so far this season. Jacob MacFarland has placed in the top five in all three of his starts and comes in off a fifth-place run at Englewood. Emmett Tuckey has scored a pair of top-five finishes and was 12th last Sunday and all six Hodag seventh graders placed in the top half of the field on Sunday. That included Houg, who started shotgun on the field of more than 100 riders and worked his way up to 48th. 

“It’s been a journey, but we’ve been doing good, especially our buddy Hans and Jacob and all of them,” Houg said. “They’re fast kids. They’re hopefully going to make it to MS2 next year. Hopefully they make it there and they can keep getting podiums.”

In addition to representing the Rhinelander area, coach Lester said Sunday’s race will be important for the Hodags in terms of getting a good starting position for the WICL finale Oct. 20 at Trek Trails in Waterloo.

“A lot of these guys and gals can hold their starting positions, which is huge in the next race because it has that uphill start and it turns into some single track right away,” he said. “It’s nice to be on the front or toward the front. A lot of these guys earned that place yesterday, just to hold that place during our race would be super helpful.” 

More information on this weekend’s race, and the WICL can be found on the league’s website, https://wisconsinmtb.org. 

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].