Raiders Cycling

Raider Cycling practice has begun this past week. We’ll be practicing on Monday & Thursday @ 6pm with an optional ride on Sunday @ 3pm. If your child (grades 6-12th) is interested in joining the team, send a message to Coach Horton @ [email protected] or text 678-438-8171. For more info on the GA Cycling League go to

Meet Georgia Cycling Association — Georgia Cycling Association A NEW DAY IS DAWNING FOR YOUTH CYCLING IN GEORGIA The Georgia Interscholastic Cycling League has unveiled a new name, new logo, and new website as part of an extensive brand overhaul. The Georgia Interscholastic Cycling League has unveiled a new name, new logo, and new website as part of an extensiv...

Great day of racing on our home course at Lake Russell WMA for Chainbuster Racing’s “Currahee’s Revenge”! Coach Ivie got 3rd in Masters Division, Jonathan Ivester and Jackson Cording got 1st and 2nd respectively in the Junior Male division and Jack Horton got 1st in Open Male and Overall in the short course! Job well done!

Practice has begun for the Fall Mountain Bike Season for 6-12th grade Boys & Girls in Habersham County! But it’s not too late! We’re taking new teammates through July! For more information on Georgia League go to www.georgiamtb.org

Apparently Raider Cycling 2020 is gonna be a Zoom meeting. Look for coach Mealor’s upcoming date. It won’t be hard to figure out who he is by his background.

Thanks to Chain Buster Racing for a great race! Proud of our parents, coaches and volunteers that helped make it a success!

And that's a wrap!

A temperate and partly sunny day greeted racers for race #2 of the Terrapin Beer Co.Southeastern Gravel Series at the Mt. Airy City Hall for packet pickup where amazing volunteers from the Habersham Raiders NICA team guided them through the registration process. For 2020, a reschedule forced a venue change and an all new course. The town of Mt. Airy was amazingly accommodating, and the new course was described as "killer" by Masters racer Chris Lessing. We'll assume he meant it in a good way!

At 10:00, our short course participants rolled off the start where a course of 19.3 miles and over 2100 elevation awaited. The course was fast and flowy with a few punchy climbs sprinkled along the route before the brutal exit climb up Lake Lake Russell Road. Overall winner and local junior racer and Habersham Raider member Jack Horton blistered the short course with a finish time of 1:31:36 followed closely by Ultra Masters (60+) racer Robert Rivers with a time of 1:32:01. Overall female racer Kristi Harding led a talented field of racers with an amazing finish time of 1:55:20 followed by Masters racer Susan Nichols with finish time of 2:00:51.

At 10:15, our long course racers rolled to the start line where a course of 35 miles and over 4000 feet of elevation awaited. Overall winner, course designer, and Grand Masters (50-59) racer Jame Carney destroyed the course with a finish time of 2:10:40 and was followed closely by Open category winner Jaden Grimes with a finish time of 2:10:56. The Open category saw a Piedmont College Cycling team podium sweep with Jaden Grimes, Sammy Rideout, and Conley Wilhelm taking all the steps. The most exciting finish came in our Masters division where Trae Grimes (2:15:28.87) edged out Pete Edmondson (2:15:28.94). Erica Carney led our super talented female racers with an overall victory and finish time of 2:36:43 followed by Masters division winner Laina Palmeri with a finish time of 2:53:43.

After our awards celebration, Trae Grimes continued his winning streak by taking home the amazing Roval Control gravel wheelset by Specialized Bicycles!

It truly was an amazing day of racing.

Final thoughts.

Yesterday, we had an serious incident on course that required medical evacuation and advanced first responder care. We visited the racer in the hospital this morning. He will make a full recovery. We have never viewed our racers as "customers" or "clients" but rather as family. We could not be happier that you view each other the same way. We would like to thank Rick Masters, James Himstedt, Derek Boyd, and Laura Sartain for their superior care for the downed rider. Also, a rider who did not give his name but gladly gave his jacket as hypothermia and shock were becoming a very real concern. Derek Boyd heads up our medical response team for the endurance series, but he raced the short course yesterday. He had literally just finished his race when we received word about the incident and he immediately left to go head the emergency extraction efforts and transport rider from a remote location to an awaiting ambulance. The rider was amazed by the care he received from all of you.

On that note, I need to offer a gentle reminder to all racers of all events (ours and any others) to be sure and accurately fill out the emergency contact portion of your waiver. It is absolutely critical to providing incident care.

Lastly...this is the portion of our after-event post where we typically hype our next event. For us, the next event on the calendar is Scratch Ankle Gravel in Milton, FL on March 28. However, we will be evaluating in the next few days with our local partners as well as local and state government officials to decide what best course of action to take. These are difficult times to be an event promoter because there is literally no consensus on what should happen. We had medical professionals (medical doctors, nurse practitioners, ER nurses, and EMTs) racing in our event this weekend who obviously felt it was perfectly safe to do so. We also had medical professionals and many others who asked to be transferred to other events because of understandable concern. Thank you for your patience as we figure it out, and thank you for being an amazing family of riders!

-Jason

Update on Currahee Race! We still need volunteers! Please reach out to Coach Dustin Mealor if you can help out!

Another word about Currahee!

After conferring with USFS and our local partners, we were able to get two dates in checkmate! (We reserved both just in case!) Our reschedule date for the Currahee Gravel Race 2020 will be March 14!

Multiple hunting seasons made for limited available dates. Before choosing this date, we asked Kent McMullen with AMB Weather to do a historical analysis of precipitation from Feb 14-March 14. While rain is still obviously very possible, long periods of heavy rain are typically end in February with lighter showers becoming the norm in March.

There will be a change of course and start/finish associated with the new date. The race will be hosted at Mt. Airy City Hall which is across from Lake Russell Road. As a result, you will not be climbing Tower Mountain at the end of the race. Before you celebrate, I promise that you will not want to miss it! New course maps will be uploaded soon!

See you at Tannehill!

Habersham County Chamber of Commerce Dustin Mealor

We’re in need of volunteers! On February 15th the Currahee Gravel Grinder returns to Cornelia. Below are the positions we need to fill. Please take note this is a good fundraiser for our team as we will he given some of the registration fees.

Friday: 10 - 4 (2+) course setters Saturday :5am - 8:00am . (1) Course pre-runner
6:30- 8:30am (4) Registration helpers
8:30- 1PM Sweeper - FILLED
9:00- noon 1 timing helper
Noon-2:00 Lunch helper (2) - FILLED
2:00 Podium/Awards helper
Noon-3 Course take down
3-4:00 Trailer packing (2)

We need to fill all positions to be able to receive our benefit.

I will be the 8:30-1:00PM sweeper and would like any team members thinking they can handle 34 miles with a lot of climbing to sweep with me. It will be at the pace the slowest racer is at so may not be fast at all. Regardless that’s a distance some of our racers have never seen.

Please contact Coach Mealor if you can help with one of these positions.

The Habersham Raiders Cycling team will be raffling off a knife on December 13th to help raise funds for our team in the 2020 season. Tickets are $10 each. The knife was hand-made by Scott Davidson at Solid Rock Knives. Support your Raiders and buy a ticket! Please message Dustin Mealor if you are interested. We will not sell more than 300 total tickets so get yours quick!

Sometimes coach wants to race too! Today Coach Mealor, Ashton, and Ayden took 3rd out of 10 teams in the big boys 3 man team class!

We had to hit Currahee at least once this season!

Raiders Cycling is super stoked for Ashton Stefanini who picked our first podium of the year at Heritage Park near Athens, GA. Ashton started the race in 66th place and fought hard for a 4th place finish today. CONGRATS ASH!