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Michigan State mountain biking club finds vertical challenges everywhere

Marin Klein

Mid-Michigan is not known for its hilly terrain, yet, the students who love to mountain bike have created their own community.

Mountains are rarely spoken in the same sentence as Michigan State, and most mountain lovers definitely aren’t planning on flocking to East Lansing any time soon. However, that does not stop a group of students from creating a way to bring their sport, mountain biking, to MSU.

The Spartan Mountain Biking Club, founded in 2018, is a group of around 30 who love the adrenaline rush of racing through the trees. The club was started by a group of avid bikers, looking to find others that shared their love for the sport.

Even if that group was a small circle of engineering majors.

Marin Klein

Senior engineering major Justin Tyack, the club’s president, has been mountain biking his whole life. Tyack spends time biking at Stony Creek Metropark in his hometown, Rochester Hills. He has also traveled to bike the actual mountains of Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Colorado. He found the club before even stepping foot on campus his freshman year.

“I didn’t have anyone to go biking with,” said Tyack, who started the sport at a young age with his father. “When you come here, a lot of people don’t know anyone and if you’re into it, it’s a big help to join a community where you know everyone has a similar interest to you.”

The club keeps its operation as chill as the personality of its members. The group has three scheduled trips in the year to Boyne Mountain, Marquette Mountain, and a winter trip to Ray’s Indoor Mountain Bike Park in Cleveland, Ohio. Outside of the trips, they look for any available time to hit nearby trails.

“If you have a car, you just send out, ‘Hey, Does anyone want to go biking with me’,” said Tyack. “If you have a couple hours, there’s a couple of trails in Lansing or close by. They’re nothing crazy and short, but it’s kind of fun to just get out there.”

Junior engineering major Zach Sawin is the club’s vice president. He grew up in Ann Arbor, around the Waterloo-DTE and Potawatomi Trails that the team often visits. Sawin knows that even if the trails are fairly flat, it’s still a way to be with people who share his interests.

“It’s fun to hang out with like-minded people,” said Sawin. “Engineers inherently like to mess with things and bikes are easy to mess with. There’s a joke mountain bikers have that whatever bike you have, there’s always something wrong with it. You can always upgrade it and make it better.”

The team charges $10 to join and trips cost each person around $40 for campsites and travel. Funds help subsidize gas for members carpooling and permits for camping. The E-board tries to make everything as affordable as possible.

Marin Klein

“A lot of the club funds go a long way to help make the cost more manageable for students to make them want to come,” Sawin said.

They spend the weekend camping at Petoskey State Park when they travel to Boyne Mountain. Their day is spent on the mountain and the evenings around the campfire. On the trip to Marquette Mountain, a few members choose to compete in an annual enduro race. However, most of the club chooses to just enjoy the trails at their speed.

The E-Board may be the most relaxed club leadership in East Lansing. Whether the team is getting caught in a thunderstorm at 2:00 a.m. while camping in the Upper Peninsula or has to make a rare hospital trip (Tyack claimed it was for a “bad bruise”), nothing deters these adrenaline junkies from taking advantage of the actual mountains on trips Up North.

“We’re just kind of up there to ride. It’s not really super organized,” Tyack said. “We’re having fun out there. There’s nothing really more to it.”

The club has created a space for people who love being outdoors and adventuring. Tyack, Sawin, and the members have found a way to still do the sport they love, even in a location that lacks the key ingredient to mountain biking: the mountains. They continue to get out in nature and enjoy the community they have created.

Marin Klein

“Engineers aren’t the most social people,” Sawin said. “A lot of us aren’t motivated to hang out, so it’s a good place to get out and hang out with other people.”

Mountain biking is an escape from the daily stresses of college life. The team is more than happy to drive over 45 minutes to trails when they can. It’s a way for these students to just ride their bikes, even if they are nowhere near the actual mountains.

Maybe it seems crazy to some, but to this group, it is the most logical thing in the world.

“I love doing dangerous things and I love adrenaline,” Tyack said. “When I’m really dialed in on something, my mind is so clear, like you’re not thinking about anything except for one thing at that time, which is kind of hard for me because I have a very active mind. I think a lot of engineers do.”

Marin Klein

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