MiSCA Merrell Race Recap 25′

It started like any other weekend…bikes in the truck, snacks in the cooler, parents half-awake and clutching coffee like life support. Birds chirping, dew on the grass, dads triple-checking their tire pressure gauges like they’re prepping for the Tour de France. Moms casually packing “just a few snacks” which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be an entire pantry. Kids pretending they weren’t nervous, coaches pretending they’d remembered the practice plan and everyone pretending it would be a “normal” race day. But by noon on Sunday, a chainring had been annihilated, three kids had taken over the podium, one was orbiting Earth and the birthday cake was gone. Oh…and the Coyotes? We’re leading the high school and middle school series after Race 1 and we’re nipping at the heels for elementary too. Snack-fueled domination is officially underway. Just another day with the Coyotes.

The circus tent went up, the Coyotes jerseys appeared in swarms and suddenly Merrell looked less like a state trail and more like an energy drink commercial gone wrong. Parents lined up on the sidelines armed with cowbells, lawn chairs and a level of sideline intensity that rivaled Olympic sprinters. And then the races began.

Ray, long haunted by mechanicals that seemed personally scripted by Murphy’s Law, finally pulled off the cleanest race of his life. His bike didn’t snap, creak, wheeze, or spontaneously combust. It just…worked. Which was confusing for everyone, including Ray. He floated so fresh, so clean, OutKast might sue for copyright infringement and when he nailed 2nd place Varsity, there were whispers that maybe…just maybe, the bike gods had forgiven him.

Easton glided into 10th like a dude wandering Costco aisles on a Saturday afternoon…calm, cool and still somehow snagging all the good samples. And Camden? Folks, we’ve seen flat tires, snapped chains, even handlebars bent into avant-garde sculptures. But never….never…a rider shredding his own chainring into metallic confetti. Imagine a paper shredder got drunk and tried to eat a circular saw. That’s what Camden’s drivetrain looked like. He DNF’d, sure, but honestly he deserves his own Netflix docuseries: The Chainring Massacre.

Varsity Women showed up like they’d been waiting for this moment since birth. Reese charged into 4th, Sadie hammered into 6th (we all know this was due to “mom glue”) and Ocean surged to 14th, all in their varsity debut. Blink and they were gone, like a Mario Kart warp tunnel opened up under their wheels. One dad swears he saw sparks. Physics professors are revising textbooks as we speak.

JV wasn’t about to be overshadowed. Kaitlyn, fueled by snacks and sheer hype, finished 8th while still screaming encouragement to every rider within earshot. It was less of a race and more of a motivational seminar at 15mph. Then came Tristan, who stomped the JV 9–10 field into submission with a 1st place finish that was so commanding, parents whispered “are we allowed to clap this loud?” Tyler rolled into 7th and Will went full post-crit-race crazy for 16th, cornering like he’d signed up for the Tour of Flanders by mistake.

JV 11–12 turned the course into a podium buffet…Kaden 1st, Sam 8th, Kellen 9th. The entire age group basically felt like a Coyote group ride with extra cowbell.

Then Advanced MS kids arrived and the earth trembled. Sammy snagged 2nd, Laila 3rd, Harper 5th, turning the girls’ podium into a Coyotes photo op. Cruz landed 2nd, Sawyer 6th, Jakob 7th, Max 12th, and then Owen…NASA’s newest test pilot…took 11th on his shiny 21-pound rocket ship. He hit a jump and disappeared so high into the atmosphere that NORAD actually filed a report. By the time he re-entered near Milwaukee, we’d already listed him as “Owen: Location Pending.” His dad has been politely asked to AirTag that bike (Todd please let us know when this is done!).

Meanwhile, the Intermediates ransacked their fields: Hadley 2nd, Ellie 5th, Alida 15th, Dallas 24th, Calvin 4th, Dylan 7th, Ryland 10th, Michael 16th, Michael (another Michael, because why not) 5th, Easton 6th, Huxley 19th. Coyotes were everywhere. Spectators couldn’t tell if it was one rider doing loops or fifty riders with identical jerseys. Frosting fingerprints made it clear: fifty.

Novices weren’t about to be left out of the chaos. Clark 14th, Robbie 14th, Tyler 6th, Parker 10th, Caleb 15th, Jack 19th, Spencer 21st, Ian 28th, Evan 6th, Ethan 10th, Wyatt 11th, Archer 19th. That’s not a field, that’s a Coyote parade. Parents ran out of cowbell strength halfway through. Somebody may have had to borrow ibuprofen from the snack table.

Advanced Elementary brought the cutest kind of destruction: Camden 3rd, Raylan 5th, Ryder 6th, Lola 5th. Tiny legs, big podiums, sugar crashes imminent.

And the youngest Coyotes? Absolute mayhem. PreK–1 was a blur of juice boxes and training wheels, but by the time the 2–3rd graders hit the dirt, it was chaos with podiums…Gracelyn 1st, Lucy 3rd, Winnie 14th, Charlotte 23rd. The 4th graders brought sparks too, Aspen hammered into 5th and Rainey powered through to 14th. Then the 5th graders arrived like tiny Tour de France pros: Anneke 4th, Fiona 9th, Emery 10th, and Simon (23rd male) earning enough dirt on his kit to make it look like camouflage. These kids are small, fast, feral and fueled almost entirely by frosting.

And the tent? Absolute chaos. Lucy’s birthday cake turned into a black-market economy. Rainey was spotted housing a third slice while parents muttered, “It’s carbs, it’s fine.” Finn wasn’t seen with cake this time, but c’mon…when frosting goes missing, we all know the culprit. Parents sprinted the sidelines like it was Black Friday 1998 at Circuit City, then collapsed in folding chairs only to discover crumbs where cake once stood. Sticky tables were the only evidence that dessert ever existed.

By the end of the day, we had podiums stacked like Jenga, bikes disintegrated into art projects, and one rider floating somewhere near the ozone layer. Merrell may never recover.

But here’s the kicker: this was just Race One. Next weekend we pause for Labor Day, because frankly, everyone needs time to rebuild Camden’s drivetrain, restock on frosting and figure out if Owen requires FAA clearance. In two weeks it’s Addison Oaks, where we’ll do it all over again…louder, faster, snackier.

Bring cake. Bring napkins. Bring spare everything. The Coyotes are coming. And they are feral.