Varsity Cycling (2023-2024)
By SAM ALTMAN ‘26
In the springtime, the cold Exeter winter thaws, the sun comes out, flowers bloom, and roads become dry and ready for racing again — at least for the highly-accomplished Exeter cycling team.
The team participated in multiple types of events this season: circuit races, team time trials, and individual time trials.
“The individual time trial is our shortest race, at about five laps of the track that we do individually while they record our time. For the team time trial, three or four athletes from each school will race in a category, and the second person to cross the finish line from each group will be whose time is recorded. Finally, the mass-start races (circuit races), which are my favorite because they’re the most chaotic, are just whoever from a crowd gets to the end first,” senior Avery Baker said.
Exeter varsity cyling is broken up into Boys A, B, and C as well as Girls A and B. Participants at all of these levels performed well, taking home multiple individual awards and winning many tournaments for Exeter (crushing Andover each time, of course).
“Almost all of the events this year have been team wins, which is awesome. In addition, the newer kids especially are doing very well on an individual level in categories like B and C,” senior Will Lu commented.
“Our coaches have also played a large part in our successes,” Baker continued. “Coach Mills, for example, has been here ever since my prep year, and Coach Palleiko, Lovett, and Whittemore have all been huge assets to the team. Also, Ms. Fair, from the French department, has joined us recently. They all create a great environment for students.”
“I think people have performed amazingly this year, and, going forward, I think we’re just going to get better, faster, and stronger and get more overall experience with racing,” Lu reflected.
“We’ve got a lot of new preps and lowers on the team this year and it’s been really exciting to watch them improve and I expect great energy going forward,” Baker concluded.
