Panguitch Holds First Race on New Mountain Bike Course

On September 6 and 7, Panguitch had its first mountain bike race on its new course, completed in April. As promised, it was a pretty awesome event.

A Cool New Course and 3,000 People to Share It with

Ever since he had seen the huge mountain biking events across the state, Head Coach Eric Fawson couldn’t hold in his enthusiasm to share them with his people back at home.

“It’s a phenomenal experience,” he told The Byway not long after people started getting curious, “one of those where you have to go to just see how big it is.” Since not everyone could go to these events, it was pretty great when Eric was eventually able to bring a taste of the hype to Panguitch.

In late August, news started going out that 3,000 student-athletes, coaches and parents would be coming to Panguitch to race.

And come they did. By Friday, teams from 17 different high schools were practicing the course, setting up tents, and settling in for the race the next day. That was a sight the Panguitch team had seen, but not on their own sandy turf.

“It was really cool seeing all the tents set up at our very own race,” said Lizzie Barney, a senior on Panguitch’s team who is in her second year of racing.

The course itself is a 5.8-mile cardio workout weaving its way through Red Canyon and locally named Holy Cow, Pet Cemetery and Agate Hill.

Steven Armstrong, another Panguitch senior who has been racing since he was a freshman, loves the speed different sections of this course allow. “The course starts to get fast right after you get past the red rock area being a sandy but speedy section that requires you to use bike body separation but doesn’t pick back up until after you get past Agate Hill. Then it’s a fast track all the way down, well, as long as you can maintain your speed and momentum.”

“A lot of other courses have harder hills to climb,” Zoey Fawson, also a senior, agreed. “Ours is more of a flowy track. A lot of people really liked that.”

How It All Happened

This speedy, scenic course has been a long time in the making.

“It was just really cool that we got a race in our hometown because this is something that we’ve been waiting for for six years,” said Kadee Harland, senior. Kadee and her friend Zoey have talked with their coaches about getting a course since they started back in 2019. “To finally get it is pretty awesome.”

“We always kind of joked about it our first year,” said Zoey. “After that it was like, we could actually do this.” The next year, they started working. That was five years ago. 

There were some hangups. After starting the course, the group had to gather signatures to approve it. Once the course was mapped out, it snowed, and they had to wait for the road to be plowed. But thanks to the Fawsons, the BLM, the Utah Mountain Bike League, and Garfield County Road Department, the course was finished in April 2024.

Zoey was more involved than most of the team in doing finishing touches. “I helped make the berms and smooth out the course,” she said. “We would have days where we would take the team out to ride the course. We would do a lot of raking.”

The team was asked to ride the course as much as they could to pack it down.

When the course was finished, they couldn’t believe it. “I figured it’d happen eventually,” said Lizzie, but it was still hard to believe when it did. “It’s pretty cool that they got it done so fast.”

Performance

Panguitch was scheduled for the second mountain bike race of the season.

Before the season, the athletes were placed in categories based on grade level and prior performance. Because of the category rankings, it is difficult to compare racers based on placing, but the following high school racers on Panguitch’s team finished in under an hour:

Girls

Kadee Harland: 55:07

Zoey Fawson: 58:21

Boys

Ronan Mooney: 52:07

Tavin Leibbrandt: 53:58

Steven Armstrong: 54:12

Dayton Houston: 56:41

Lincoln Henrie: 59:45

Now a 19-person team including middle school racers, Panguitch’s team is currently at a close second place in Region 6. At the Panguitch mountain bike race, they beat Creek Valley Composite, the first place team, by seven points, but it was not quite enough to pull ahead.

Kadee Harland placed 5th in JV A Girls, which is the same place she got at state last year. “It was really cool to get on the podium at my own race,” she said.

Kadee said she’s been working a lot on hills this year and “just getting my time down,” while Lizzie and Steven are working on endurance and oxygen efficiency.

Zoey says she tends to get super nervous before races to the point of tears. She wants to try not getting as nervous, but still allow herself a healthy amount of nerves. “Our first race this year,” she said, “I didn’t cry. I was too confident and I didn’t do as well.” This time, she was nervous, but she performed better.

The next mountain bike race will be in Beaver on September 21.

– by Abbie Call

Feature image caption: Kadee Harland (senior) Panguitch.

---