The Gunnison Mountain Bike team is one of the few club sports at Gunnison High School. It begins every year at the end of the summer and ends around the end of September. The team is coached by Sierra Cucinelli along with several parent volunteers. It gains new members every year but there is one that has continued to return for three years and her name is Allie Schwartz.

Schwartz is a junior at Gunnison High School and has participated and competed in mountain biking for all three years, so the Giddyup chose her as a star athlete for her sport. When asked about her junior season she said “It was pretty good, it was very hard and time consuming but all the hard work definitely paid off. I’m in the best shape ever at the moment and it was great to be able to participate in a sport with teams all across the state and form new bonds.” 

The team had five races this year, everywhere around the state. When asked what her favorite race was, she mentioned, “Snowmass was my favorite. It was a really cool venue and the course was really fun because of the downhill, but it was also the hardest because of the elevation.” She was also asked about what it was like to have such a small team this year but countered with, “It was actually a very big team for us, but it was very interesting because it was a mostly female team this year except for two. In comparison to other years, we had a lot of racers and it was a lot of fun.” 

The team competed in the state race in Glenwood Springs, which was not one of the team’s favorite courses. Schwartz continued to say, “Our team finished 15th out of 40 teams and we would’ve been placed higher but we were penalized for having an almost all female team.”

Schwartz also said that she wants to continue biking next year and hoped to combine the Gunnison and Crested Butte teams to hopefully form a composite team. She concluded with her overall thoughts on the season, saying, “It was definitely interesting but it was really fun because of all the new people you get to meet as well as the new trails you get to discover and the new places you get to go.”