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The 2025 Rogue Composite Vultures stand under large trees.

2025 Race Reports

Race 3 (September 20): Cascade Challenge at Mt. Bachelor, OR

The Rogue Composite Vultures hit up Mt. Bachelor on Saturday, September 20th, for this year’s high altitude romp around the mountain’s nordic center. A rider favorite, this course especially rewards those who can keep the pace through twists and turns through trees and up and over exposed roots. The combination of altitude, the course’s characteristics, and fall illnesses going around shook up the results quite a bit from previous races, and then paid off by offering an afternoon of lift-served riding in the Mt Bachelor Bike park for those who dared. The Vultures fielded first-time racer (and long-time DEVO rider) Loren Brown, who enjoyed the magic of youth mountain bike racing. Like Moore Fun (Race 2), a Vulture got on the podium for the first time! Congratulations to Sullivan Graff, who grabbed a 5th place finish in the MS2 7th Grade Boys category!

And to cap it off, the Vultures once again lived up to their reputation by cheering on the last rider on this course, all the way up the final climb now nicknamed “The Wall.”

Here are the final results from Mt Bachelor:

Category MS3 Girls (8th Grade)

  • Samantha Botts 3rd Place

Category MS2 Girls (7th Grade)

  • Aubrey Botts 3rd Place

Category HS3 Boys (Junior Varsity)

  • Grant Heeter 3rd Place
  • Porter Younkin 7th Place
  • Casey McEnroe 14th Place
  • Tahvo Hansen DNF

Category HS1 Boys (9th Grade)

  • Rye Rilling 1st Place
  • Niko Keto 2nd Place
  • Teo Galicia 3rd Place
  • Luca Hahn-MacCurdy 9th Place – first Top 10 finish!
  • Eli Newman 12th Place

Category MS3 Boys (8th Grade)

  • Kai Kuwabara 5th Place
  • Loren Brown 26th Place – first race
  • Category MS2 Boys (7th Grade)
  • Chase Eldridge 2nd Place
  • Duncan Skiles 4th Place
  • Sullivan Graff 5th Place – first podium
  • Cameron Steidler 15th Place
  • Riley Willing 28th Place

Category MS1 Boys (6th Grade)

  • Makai Butler 1st Place – first win!
  • Colin Pelger 3rd Place
  • Caleb Smith 4th Place
  • Nikko Kuwabara 11th Place

Race 2 (September 3): Moore Fun in Klamath Falls, OR

Mountain bike racers do fist bumps at the race start line.

NICA is all about the vibe!

The NICA Oregon League returned to Klamath Falls after taking a year off, offering a welcome semi-home course race for the Rogue Composite Vultures in their second race of the season. The Vultures welcomed two more first time racers this season: Liam Adamson (MS3/8th Grade) and Riley Willing (MS2/7th Grade), bringing total new riders to seven!

The new-to-us DEVO Van made its very first trip Saturday morning bringing coaches Connor, Joe, and Merlin, along with future Vultures Aila and Jameson.

Additionally, we had five non-racing Vultures in attendance cheering on the action, with

most of them participating in a race course fun ride when the racing was over. It was great to have Jacob Wewerka, Oliver Fedorek, Jack Carty, William Carty, and Jasper Johnson come over and see a NICA racing event in-person!

After putting on a lovely get-together over Rodeo’s pizza in the park Friday night, our parent volunteers raised the bar further in the Pit Zone Saturday with pancakes, bacon, and even homemade pulled pork and slaw! As a picnic alone, Saturday was spectacular, but on top of that there was, of course, bike racing!

Race 1 was both short and a time trial, so this second race was the first full length race featuring a “bunch start.” For several

racers, it was one lap further than any previous NICA race they had completed, and it didn’t slow them down one bit. The results were stellar once again, with a lot of Vultures on the podium in the top 5, including 3 first-time podiums! Caw Caw!

Race 2 Results

MS2 Girls

  • Aubrey Botts 2nd

HS3 Boys

  • Grant Heeter 1st
  • Porter Younkin 2nd
  • Casey McEnroe 18th
  • Tahvo Hansen 20th

HS1 Boys

  • Rye Rilling 1st
  • Teo Galicia 3rd
  • Niko Keto 4th
  • Eli Newman 11th
  • Luca Hahn-MacCurdy 15th

MS3 Boys

  • Kai Kuwabara 5th – first podium
  • Liam Adamson 38th

MS2 Boys

  • Chase Eldridge 2nd
  • Duncan Skiles 4th
  • Sullivan Graff 6th
  • Roland Curtis 15th
  • Riley Willing 27th

MS1 Boys

  • Nikko Kuwabara 2nd – first podium
  • Makai Butler 3rd – first podium
  • Colin Pelger 4th

Once official, results will be posted here.

Race 1 (August 23): Old Oak Prologue in Salem, OR

The 2025 Vultures race season kicked off August 23 at a new (and private) venue near Salem. Left Coast Estates had plenty of room for parking, pit zones, and even 4.5 miles of brand new and wide trail to feature. The heat ramped up (100 degrees???), but not until towards the last of the five major waves around noon, which thankfully included the middle schoolers doing their shorter, single lap race, vs the earlier high schoolers’ two. The new wave structure forced the high schoolers to get up early this time around, a move that will hopefully lead to fewer race traffic jams, particularly in subsequent bunch start races this year.

The prologue/time trial format of Race 1 featured four first-time Vulture racers! Welcome to new 8th grade racer Samantha Botts (experienced DEVO Gravity and downhill racer), as well as 6th graders Makai Butler, Nikko Kuwabara, Colin Pelger, and Caleb Smith! And thank you to all the Vultures families for their volunteerism around the pit zone with food/drink/shelter, not to mention the financial and time investment bringing the kids four hours north.
“I am so proud of this Vultures team for being the only group of folks cheering on the very last riders into the finish! This has become something we are known for across the league. Even though we may not win the conference spirit award (we have in the past and we certainly have a chance this year), I couldn’t be more proud of the positive energy and sportsmanship of our fairly small but mighty team.” -Ryan Younkin, Head Coach
Speaking of mighty, as always our team was notably high up in the results. The timing system was glitchy, and there were no final results until several days later. But here are the results, and here’s a mighty, “Caw, Caw” to you, Vultures! Well done!

South Conference Results

HS3 Boys (Field Size 19)
  •   Grant Heeter 1st
  •   Porter Younkin 2nd
HS1 Boys (Field Size 55)
  •   Rye Rilling 1st
  •   Teo Galicia 2nd
  •   Niko Keto 5th
  •   Luca Hahn-MacCurdy 15th
  •   Eli Newman 17th
MS3 Girls (Field Size 7)
  •   Samantha Botts 6th
MS2 Girls (Field Size 13)
  •   Aubrey Botts 5th
MS3 Boys (Field Size 41)
  •   Kai Kuwabara 22nd
MS2 Boys (Field Size 27)
  •   Miles Younkin 1st
  •   Chase Eldridge 2nd
  •   Duncan Skiles 5th
  •   Sullivan Graff 8th
  •   Roland Curtis 15th
  •   Cameron Steidler 18th
MS1 Boys (Field Size 23)
  •   Caleb Smith 3rd
  •   Colin Pelger 4th
  •   Makai Butler 7th
  •   Nikko Kuwabara 9th