Caleb Nelson | Sports Editor| cnelson3@mail.smcvt.edu
Lawton Jones, ’26, and Ian Morse, ’26, at Cochran’s Ski Area in Richmond, Vt.
When he joined St. Michael’s College after serving in the military, keen mountain biker Todd Johnstone-Wright, ’95, discovered biking was just an adjacent activity to climbing.
“It was early days, the bikes weren’t great. They were pretty finicky, they broke a lot. There wasn’t a lot of trail infrastructure here riding what we would call ‘rake and ride’ trails where you would just find a line in the woods, you would rake it and ride it,” said Wright.
Wright, who served as the Director of Adventure Sport for 21 years after starting the program in 1996, is now the Director of the Undergraduate Professional Endorsement Program.
Thirty years ago, bikes looked very different, as they were rigid and did not have suspension, Wright said. Students had mountain bikes on campus, but they only used them to get around Gilbrook Natural Area and do some laps.
“In the early 2000s, like 2004 to 2010, all of a sudden mountain biking became a thing. It was always there, and mountain biking always existed and then it just absolutely exploded. As the industry grew there was a big uptick in bikes,” said Wright.
Wright noted that during this period, the mountain biking industry focused on making the sport relatively accessible, portraying it as a family activity, and implementing new technology in the bikes.
As a result of this boom in mountain biking, a bike culture has evolved on the St. Michael’s College campus.
The nearby mountain biking areas of Gilbrook Natural Area, Sunny Hollow, and Cochran’s Ski Area are very popular with students.
As a result of the high level of student participation in the sport, several students have expressed interest in forming a mountain biking club on campus.
In sixth grade, Casey Arsenault, ’25, got his first real mountain bike, and since then, he has developed a deep passion for the sport, spending time watching videos online and following World Cup races.
Since going to college, mountain biking has played an even more important role in his life.
“It does a lot for me, it gives me the ability to shut my brain off and only think about one thing at a time,” said Arsenault.
“In mountain biking, you can’t really think about anything else except what you’re doing in the present so I think that’s very valuable.
“Especially now more than ever being a college student having a lot more independent responsibilities it’s nice to be able to do something that gets you away from everything else going on.”
Being from Stowe, Mass., Arsenault has a different perspective on mountain biking.
“At least in New England, the reputation of Vermont mountain biking might be the best in the area for trail systems and actual support of mountain biking,” said Arsenault.
The US Open of Mountain Biking (MTB) is normally held in Killington, Vt. This year the opening took place from Sept. 26-29.
Maximo Steverlynck, ’26, is another student on campus who is passionate about riding bikes. Steverlynck has been mountain biking for three years, and road biking for five years and was persuaded by his trainer back home to Nordic ski cross-training.
“There is a lot of overlap in people who ski and bike, both are really good training for the other,” said Steverlynck. “Biking is a really good way of getting in that low-intensity cardio and hours.
“And skiing is great for the bike because it builds muscles that you otherwise wouldn’t be working which still really helps with bike handling and even more so with mountain biking and road biking.”
For Steverlynck, biking satisfies the competitive drive he no longer experiences from Nordic skiing. He also uses biking to clear his head and stay in good physical shape.
Steverlynck has raced in numerous mountain bike races and plans to race on the road in the spring.
“So far it’s just been: throw on a blank jersey and compete unattached in the college races. It’s been really fun. I get to test myself against other people in the circuit. Unfortunately, I can’t score points and I can’t go to nationals,” said Steverlynck.
A club affiliation is required to earn points and qualify for nationals. While Steverlynck is currently registered as a regular racer, he needs a collegiate race license to score points and compete at nationals.
A collegiate license can only be obtained through association with a collegiate club.
Ever since Steverlynck arrived as a transfer student last fall, he has been trying to implement a bike club on campus. One of the frustrating aspects has been working with the Student Government Association.
“Going through SGA is the easiest way to form a club but it creates more problems than it’s worth saving that time in the front end,” said Steverlynck.
“Because you cannot drive yourself to races, if you’re using SGA money you need to take school vans, we would need to buy a trailer, if we’re going more than 200 miles we would need to take a coach bus.
“All these things are in complete opposition to the amount of money SGA has to give out.”
Before Steverlnyck transferred to St. Michael’s College he attended The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn.
There, Steverlynck started a cycling club. But he transferred before the club was used to its full potential.
“We would do a lot of group riding, a lot of gravel group rides, a lot of road group rides, and quite a bit of mountain bike group riding. I remember my freshman year we had four bikes in the dorms,” said Steverlynck.
If there was a bike club on campus, Steverlynck’s goals would be to have team training rides, implement a how-to-identify and fix problems on your bike workshop, and make it easy and accessible for people to race.
“The racing happens regardless of whether we have a club or not,” said Steverlynck. “I just want to give St. Michael’s students the opportunity to participate in that racing that we don’t currently have.”
