Family hosts Cycle Dawgs at mountain retreat

A retreat in Brian Head, Utah, gave several Cycle Dawgs and their head coach, Robert Grace, a chance to take in new scenic sights while logging miles in the mountains.

The Ramona High School mountain biking team was invited to the family cabin of Cycle Dawg Sean Duffy by his parents, Steve and Michele Duffy, at the team’s end-of-the-year banquet last spring, explained Grace. He drove some of the cyclists to the vacation spot in southern Utah, leaving Thursday, Aug. 6, and returning Monday, Aug. 10.

Brian Head Peak is 11,000 feet elevation, he said, and there is a chair lift that will take cyclists up the mountain.

“Then you get to ride down the mountain,” said Grace.

They did that on Friday, Aug. 7, despite the fact that it rained all day.

“So it was really slippery,” he said.

Grace said he logged 30 miles that day while the students rode more. The Cycle Dawgs headed out on their bikes during the next two days.

Among the Cycle Dawgs riding at the retreat were Sean Duffy, Gwendalyn Gibson, Ryan McKinnon, Josh Failla, Karson Basore, Hayden Ellsworth, Jaron Cappos and Stassa Cappos. Steve and Michele Duffy’s ninth-grade son, Colin, and their seventh-grade daughter, Kiera, also got a taste of cross country mountain biking, said Grace.

“It was a fun getaway,” he said.

Expressing gratitude toward their hosts, Grace noted that Michele Duffy cooked all the meals so it was only right that the students’ job was to clean up.

The Cycle Dawgs will begin club riding near the end of September and will have a couple of meetings after school starts for returning members and anyone interested in joining the team, said Grace.

The team’s competitive race season begins in February.