Over the weekend, the Park City Schools Mountain Bike Team held their annual Bike Swap.
Bikes and all sorts of cycling gear found new homes, with 20% of all sales benefitting the team.
For the first time, the swap was held at the Park City High School, which most of the team’s bikers attend. The usual home, the Utah Film Studios in Quinn’s Junction, was being used to film the upcoming season of “Marshals.”
Park City Head Coach Pete Stoughton estimates the swap generated at least $20,000 for the team. Park City Schools Mountain Bike Team is the largest high school mountain biking team in Utah, and the profits will be used to help those bikers and coaches in need.
“This was our second-best year,” Stoughton said. “Last year was, by far, our best. … We were really nervous because it was a different location and so late for us.”
Stoughton fretted that everyone had already grabbed their bikes for the summer with the low snowfall season, but that wasn’t the case.
“A lot of that money will go right to athlete support,” Stoughton said. “We have about 20 scholarship riders and a lot of kids who need bikes. … All of our coaches are volunteers, so we buy a lot of swag and gear for them to do what they’re doing out on the trails.”
A major expense for the team is traveling all their bikers, coaches and bikes themselves to meets in the fall. They had some of their team travel vans out at the high school on Monday night for the first practice of their season.
The team had all about 250 riders out on Monday for teambuilding activities and bike rides. They have bikers ranging from grades seven to 12.
“The kids are excited,” Stoughton said. “This really echoes the values of our community because it’s a family sport: Kids can get out with their friends and families, and they can do these activities for a lifetime, as many of us here in Park City do. And they can have a ton of fun.”
Most of the volunteer assistant coaches on the team are parents, coaching their kids or their kids’ friends.
The team practices two to three days a week over the summer across all the trails in town. Stoughton assures the community that they’ll continue to not train all in one spot, nor take up the ever-sought-after parking at trailheads.
“Our first goal is that every kid falls in love with the sport,” Stoughton said. “We want every kid who comes into our program at the end of the season to be so pumped about riding that they can’t wait until next year. Our second goal for the season is that all of the kids feel like it’s a community: It’s where their friends are and where their community is. … And then third is results and podiums.”
Stoughton said the team has some extremely talented bikers. He’s trying to recalibrate expectations for a team that won the state championship in 2023, with the larger Corner Canyon team now in their region.
“If we build a really good team culture and environment, lots of good stuff is going to happen,” Stoughton said. “As the tides rise, so will the ships.”
Senior captains Max Cardenas and Tegan Grady both said they are ready to lead the team this season. As they were once inspired to join the team, they now see it as their job to motivate others to come try mountain biking.
“I want to be someone people look up to,” Grady said. “And leave a big impact.”
Cardenas said he was inspired to join the team by his older brother, who used to bike with them. Now, he can’t get enough of the sometimes dangerous thrill that is mountain biking.
“It’s such a great community,” Grady said.