The Start

IT TAKES A VILLAGE OF TRAILS

MORIAH WILSON WAS RAISED ON THE TRAILS OF EAST BURKE. THANKS TO THOSE TRAILS AND OTHERS, VERMONT’S COMMUNITIES ARE EVEN STRONGER.

It was a shock to hear the news a few weeks ago of Vermont gravel-racing star Moriah Wilson’s murder in Texas. Like so many people around the country, we were stunned. How could this happen? Why? And why to her?

In Vermont, nearly everyone has one or two degrees of connection. Mo’s brother Matthew, a recent Middlebury College grad, had interviewed for an internship with Vermont Sports last winter. Her aunt Andrea Wilson had lived in Middlebury and was a friend.

While news media around the country focused on the crime that was committed and the intrigue around it, we wanted to hear more about Moriah and how she went from being a recreational mountain biker to becoming the winningest offroad racer in the country this year.

Though they were still processing the news and grieving, the Wilson family graciously granted Vermont Sports the first interviews and access to some of the people who had helped shape her skyrocketing career as a cyclist.

What emerged in our feature on page 14 is the story of how Moriah Wilson busted to get where she was. “I had never seen someone work so hard,” her father Eric said. While yes, her father had been a World Cup ski racer, it was Moriah’s training and planning that got her to where she was at the top of off-road racing – mountain bike and gravel.

But it was also something else. “It truly takes a village, and the village has just reached out to us in so many ways” said Karen Wilson, her mother. Moriah grew up riding Kingdom Trails, attending Burke Mountain Academy and was, in many ways, formed by the landscape and the community of skiers, riders and athletes that make up this small town in the Northeast Kingdom.

That community, in turn, was formed, in so many ways, by mountain biking.

Twenty-five years ago, both Kingdom Trails and the Vermont Mountain Bike Association were just getting going, as John Atkinson, the long-time executive director of Mad River Riders, explains in “How VMBA Changed Vermont.”

In the same way that skiing led to the birth and growth of so many ‘ski towns’ around Vermont, thanks to the work of VMBA and its chapters, mountain biking is doing something similar, giving rise to new destinations such as Poultney and reviving old ones like Randolph.

One of the most important things that VMBA founder Gary Kessler did was help put in place the Landowner Liability Protection Act in 1998 which protects private landowners who allow cyclists and others to use their land from being sued.

To understand just what an impact that act has had, look at a recent situation in Oregon, which has no such law. In 2016 a cyclist at Mt. Hood Skibowl hit a rut and crashed into a sign. Recently, he was awarded $11.4 million. Mt. Hood Skibowl has since closed its slopes to mountain biking.

Yes, VMBA and mountain biking have changed Vermont. But more importantly, the sport has helped shape our communities and given rise to athletes such as Moriah.

“I’ll tell you where our future ski champions will come from,” Warren Witherell, the founding headmaster of Burke Mountain Academy told The New York Times in 1977. “We’re going to have to raise them. And right here at Burke, we’re doing our part.”

While he meant Burke Mountain Academy, the same thing could be said for the village of East Burke. Because it does, as Karen Wilson says, take a village. Now the Wilsons have set up a GoFundMe page with money going to a foundation to help support community programs to help youth find self-confidence through the sports Moriah loved. If you want to carry on Mo’s spirit, please consider giving. —Lisa Lynn, Editor

ESTABLISHED 1971 WEST HILL SHOP

PUTNEY • VERMONT