ALPINE Cycle Club awarded the winners of the Junior MTB Series on the weekend.

Now in its fifth year, the series offers the opportunity for competition in mountain biking for children of all ages.

The series has always been popular with children in Bright and the Alpine Shire with strong turnouts for each of the series’ races.

Traditionally racing in XCO format, the races are famously ‘racing for lollipops’, offering the kids a chance to step into the realms of competitive mountain bike racing, with the reward of a chuppachup for the podium finishers.

This series used to be held just in Bright, though moves by Alpine Cycle Club’s Jenny Corser in recent years saw the series expand to incorporate races at nearby MTB parks of Beechworth and Mount Beauty.

Corser was joined by Nathan Fenton as joint organiser in 2019 where the series was expanded further to incorporate races at Yackandandah, Falls Creek and now Dinner Plain.

This move was incredibly popular and the series saw levels of participation from not just the competing clubs but the entire North East, consistently seeing up to 120 children riding at each event.

“It was great to bring the series back in a really strong way after things being cut short in 2020,” Fenton said.

“We didn’t know what to expect but found the enthusiasm was through the roof with the Beechworth round and the two rounds held in Bright reaching the maximum entries cap way ahead of schedule.

“There are some really fast racers in this year’s series and it showed with the friendly competitiveness we saw at a lot of the races.”

The event was impacted by COVID in 2020 and was forced to conclude ahead of schedule.

The current 2020-21 season saw the return to racing for the series and a huge amount of popularity.

The season incorporated seven races (at Bright, Dinner Plain, Beechworth, Mount Beauty, Yackandandah and Falls Creek) and saw over 560 registrations, regularly maxing out the 100 rider cap placed on each event.

The series of seven races saw the best performance for four events go towards the child’s overall score.

Competition was tight and a lot of categories saw the end result came down to the final race at Falls Creek.

The Falls Creek race was originally intended to run in December but COVID issues in November meant some 2020 events were rescheduled to dates later in the season in 2021, meaning a crisp ride in zero degree temperatures just 24 hours before a big snowfall.

In the end a range of children from Bright, Mount Beauty and even as far as Albury were recognised for their efforts in winning their series categories.

More girls than ever before entered in this season and there was a great response from young kinds in the U5 category keen to take part in MTB racing.