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Girls on the Mountain Biking Team By Lili-Marie Schmidt ’22 Apparently, mountain biking is a sport dominated by men at Hebron Academy. Even though I have been mountain biking for several years now, I never thought being a girl made me special. Why should girls not do mountain biking? What would make boys better at mountain biking than girls? However, we - that’s Maggie, Sam and I - are the first girls on the mountain biking team in quite a long time, according to what I’ve been told. “After quite a long time” is, in this case, so long ago that the seniors at Hebron can not remember ever seeing a girl on the team. At least we are not the very first, though, as I found a picture of girls on the mountain biking team eleven years ago, in 2010. Maggie, Sam and I are proud to make our team more diverse, representing girls and different nationalities. Hebron gives everyone on our team, regardless of their skill level, the opportunity to reach their full potential. We are incredibly grateful to have such great trails right next to our campus, giving us the opportunity to prepare for our races as best as possible. During our practices, we improve our skills by playing games as a team or going on the trails; we clean the trails and our bikes, and build pump tracks. The races on Wednesdays and Saturdays are the highlight of the week, and we can proudly announce that our team diligently collects medals, not only beating the girls of New England, but also many of the boys. Most of the time, we are five boys and two girls representing Hebron at the races. Each member of our team, including our coach Mr. Bates, supports and empowers us to do our best. During hours worth of bus rides and waiting until the start of the races, we have grown together as a team. I have to admit that I actually enjoy our bus rides. And, despite having never done mountain biking before, Sam already participates in our races.
