Forget about e-bikes, e-scooters and even BMX bikes. Friday at Stromlo Forest Park was all about mountain bikes, with more than 540 kids tearing up the track.
Weaving around at top speeds and racing their mates all while keeping a keen eye out for snakes, the popular ACT Schools Mountain Bike Championships drew a massive crowd on Friday.
With thousands of spectators, parents, and volunteers in addition to the championship riders, there was a brilliant carnival-like atmosphere at Stromlo Forest Park.
The 25th edition of the championships, run by Canberra Off-Road Cyclists (CORC) through affiliation with AusCycling, featured students from year 5 to year 12 competing, with riders as young as 10.
Riders were mostly made up of schools from the ACT region, but there were plenty of entries coming from interstate too, such as Bathurst, Forbes, Orange, Newcastle, and NSW's South Coast.
Kids were vying for medals in a relay-race format with teams of up to four riders, male and female, in the junior (years 6 to 8), senior (years 9 and 10) and college categories (years 11 and 12).
Racing can be more than four hours, covering six kilometres.
Schools got very creative with their team names too. Nowra Anglican College's "Scumbags" team finished third in the junior boys division, behind Radford, and winners, the "Blacksnake Billygoats", from Mount Stromlo High School.
Avondale Primary and High School deserved an honourable mention with team names such as "All the gear no idea", "Wheelie Jedi" and "Wheelie Fast".
Event director Dave Brahe from Australia's largest mountain bike club, CORC, said the schools championship is all about encouraging a fun environment for riders.
And if they're lucky, they might just discover the next world champion rider like Bec Henderson or Caroline Buchanan.
"This is our huge mass participation event that we run every year and it's just about getting kids on bikes," Brahe said.
"It's not like one of our big international-level races that we run in other parts of the year. This race is about kids having fun and riding with your mates from school.
"It's really rewarding to see the smiles on their faces as they come across the line and the calibre of riders here is great.
"There's some ACT and AusCycling junior development squads competing, right through to kids that are racing for the first time.
"We have 11 percent female participation this year and the youngest kids are in year five.
"Mountain biking teaches some really good skills, coordination, risk management, problem solving and it's just such a great thing to get kids outdoors instead of on an Xbox."
A full list of results can be found here.
