By Tina Fisher Cunningham
Fisher Forde Media
Tehachapi mountain bike teams win competition on home turf
The Forde Files No 147
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Tina Fisher Cunningham
Tehachapi High School eleventh grade student Micah Mason powered to a fifth place finish in the Varsity Girls final of the Southern California division of the High School Cycling League at the Lehigh Trails on April 30, 2017. The 18-mile race consisted of three laps of the course, which winds around the hills on the Lehigh cement plant property just north of where Hwy. 58 and Tehachapi Blvd. intersect.
The Tehachapi High School and middle school mountain bike team captured top Division 1 honors at the Southern California (SoCal) High School Cycling League final race of the year, April 29-30 at Lehigh Trails in Tehachapi. The Tehachapi team placed third overall for the SoCal 2017 series.
The top two SoCal teams for the season were Newbury Park High School, 1st, and Redlands High School, 2nd.
Darrin Mason, head coach of the Tehachapi Mountain Bike Team, described Tehachapi's results as "phenomenal."
The individual Tehachapi podium finishers for the final race were: Freshman girls, Sophia Schaeffer, 4th place; Freshman boys, Levi Donnel, 2nd place; JV girls, Madysen Rails, 3rd place; JV boys, Ethan Zehr, 1st place and Nolan Sheehy, 3rd place; and Varsity girls, Micah Mason, 5th place for the race and 6th overall in the league.
Tina Fisher Cunningham
Varsity boys rip down the hill toward the finish lline during their four-lap, 24-mile race.
Also for the SoCal season series, Tehachapi won the Overall Composite Team, 3rd place and the Overall Most Consistent Girls Team, 1st place.
The Tehachapi Mountain Bike Team consists of two teams – the Warriors, who attend Tehachapi High School and Jacobsen Middle School, and the Composite team, which is composed of charter school and home school students.
Seven hundred and fifty boys and girls competed at the April event in Tehachapi. The all-California high school mountain bike state championships are May 14 at Petaluma. For information, see the High School SoCal Cycling League web site at socaldirt.org.
Forde Shorts
Tomo Kahni hikes – Hiking tours to the enchanting native Kawaiisu winter home at Sand Canyon began April 22 and will end on June 10 . The site is a state historic park and is accessible to the public only in organized groups led by docents. For reservations, call 661-946-6092.
Museum moving -- The Flight Test Historical Foundation Museum at Edwards
Air Force Base will be moving off the base so more people can get to it. Edwards, a secure military installation, is difficult for the public to enter. Danny Bazzell, general manager of the foundation, told the East Kern Economic Alliance meeting May 11 at the Tehachapi Unified School District board room that the foundation has raised $1.3 million to accomplish the task of relocation. The foundation is awaiting the delivery of three 50,000-square-foot hangars from another airport . The museum will be completed by October, 2017. The existing museum is booked to 2018, he said.
Best sign ever
Drivers who frequently pass through Mojave may have noticed that the bold “Ice Ammo” sign on the outside of Mojave Jr. Market on Business 58 is missing. Manager Louie Maida said the wind blew the sign down and damaged it, and the owner had been waiting to see how the new California ammunition retail regulations would affect the store before deciding whether or not to repair the sign. But now the owner is in the process of selling the store, Maida told Forde Files on May 11, and the fate of the sign is unclear. The sign was bold and simple and as elegant a work of art as can be found in modern collections. It had one job to do and it did it, with gusto.
