UP Gazette

A new cycling program at Marquette Senior High School was a topic of discussion during a recent Marquette Area Public School (MAPS) board meeting posted on YouTube.

MAPS Athletic Director Alex Tiseo presented to the board on the new cycling program at the high school. They started a mountain biking program as a high school sport, something that has been a work in progress for a long time as it is a huge niche interest in the area, especially in a lot of local youth organizations. This will be the first mountain biking school club in the Upper Peninsula and the sixth in the state of Michigan.

“The sport of mountain biking both in our community and regionally, both with downstate schools and participation down there and with schools over in Wisconsin, is growing at a very rapid rate,” said Tiseo. “So, this past year, we had 11 total participants within our school-affiliated race team that was housed through the 906 Adventure Team. This is built from four to eight to 11 over the past three years and it's anticipated to just keep growing from there.”

The club will compete in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Cycling League, which has also exploded in popularity over the past couple of years, almost doubling the number of athletes who compete across the 70 participating schools. The Marquette school club already has almost a dozen participants and the club has been working with the 906 Adventure Team, a nonprofit that works to help youth grow through outdoor explorations and activities.

This new co-ed team will be administered by the Marquette County Interscholastic Cycling nonprofit and by MSHS athletics. It will be a fall sport, with practices starting in July and events beginning in September, with multiple weekend races in Wisconsin, until the Michigan League becomes more feasible to join. The district wanted to join a league now however, because its students are already driven and skilled enough to take second place in the Wisconsin league behind a much larger team.