Kallie Stewart knew she could be better, faster.
Her introduction to mountain bike racing late last year was encouraging: she improved significantly with each race and even garnered a few top-five finishes.
She wanted to perform better in the Arizona Cycling Association’s 2021 race series for middle schoolers. The 12-year-old committed to raising her game this past summer for when the series resumed from its COVID hiatus last year. With assistance and support from her parents, she stepped up her training ahead of the four-race season that began Sept. 12.
“She really worked hard in the off-season and came in stronger for the 2021 season,” said her father, Matt Stewart, an airline pilot who owns Arizona Bike Garage, Maricopa’s only bicycle shop, and started a mountain bike riding group in town.
Kallie’s focus was on improving her speed by increasing her strength and endurance.
“I would do spin bike for 45 minutes a day and then we started riding our bikes more on the trails,” Kallie said. “We also started running miles, starting off with like one or two miles.”
Soon, she was going three miles on her runs.
“It wasn’t so much us telling her she needed to do it,” Matt said.
“She just wanted to do it and would ask what she needed to do to be better.”
The work paid off.
MAKING HER MOVE
The nonprofit Arizona Cycling Association was organized in 2012 to develop interscholastic cycling teams for grades 6-12. An affiliate league of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, its focus is providing a first-rate mountain bike racing experience that promotes equality, camaraderie and health among its young competitors.
The ACA’s middle school program, designed to introduce its youngest riders to the sport of mountain biking, is “focused on fun, fitness, skills and trail etiquette, with a taste of the competitive aspects of mountain biking that they will find when in high school, minus the additional pressures when team scoring and season overall standings are applied,” said Mike Perry, the association’s president and executive director.
Hundreds of kids participate in its annual race series at courses across the Phoenix area. Race distances get longer as racers get older. Middle schoolers like Kallie compete in one-lap races on 5- to 6-mile-long, hilly courses through the woods or desert.
On Sept. 12, Kallie raced in the first of the four races in the 2021 series. Riding a 6-mile course through the Ponderosa pines at Fort Tuthill County Park in Flagstaff — with 365 feet of climbing — the work she put in over the summer was evident.
It was the last time Kallie would cross the finish line behind another rider.
Two weeks later, she made her move in the Coconino National Forest — elevation: 8,000 feet — in Flagstaff. Clad in her black cycling pants, matching golden-yellow jersey and helmet, pink shoes and gray-and-black gloves, Kallie propelled her black Trek around the 5.1-mile Arizona Nordic Village course and its 385 feet of incline in 31:37, besting the next rider by more than a minute. The third-place rider was more than five minutes behind Stewart.
Kallie continued her domination in the final two races of the series, Oct. 10 on a 6.2-mile track with 425 feet of climbing at Pioneer Park in Prescott and Oct. 23 on a 5-mile, desert course with about 325 feet of incline at White Tank Mountain Regional Park in Waddell.
Her No. 706 bike, with the sticker from her dad’s cycle shop on her seat tube, again crossed the finish line first — by nearly two minutes in Prescott and just over a minute in Waddell.
RACING IN THE DNA
The focus of the ACA’s middle school program may not be on competition, but Kallie tackled her races with a fierce, competitive spirit nonetheless. She wants to win.
The desire and determination to race is in her family DNA.
Matt, her father, started racing BMX bikes at age 9, the beginning of a lifetime in racing. He went on to compete in motocross, super moto and sport bikes, before retiring six years ago, he raced sprint cars.
“Basically, I raced anything I could get my hands on,” he told InMaricopa last year.
“I rode bikes as a kid like everyone else, but it became a family thing for us,” he said. “When I raced bikes, my dad was racing cars.
He stepped back from cars and bought motorcycles for my sister and me and it bloomed from there, and it turned into a career.”
Kallie’s mother, Katrina, and her uncle, Dean, were national motocross champions in Canada and the United States, respectively. Their 65-year-old father still rides motocross.
“She just gives it 110%, no matter what she does,” Katrina added. “Whether it’s racing or school, she just has that personality where she’s just competitive, so competitive naturally.”
She said the training and the racing are helping to prepare Kallie and her brother, Jack, for the rest of their lives.
“We know the dedication it takes, the sacrifice, and the blood, sweat and tears, you know,” she said. “Kallie is in, Jack is in. (He will compete in January as well.) We’ll go alright some days and they have so much fun. And then we’ll go some other days and they’re complaining the whole time because it’s hot or the trail’s hard. I really like that they ride the bikes because it’s such a mental toughness you have to have, and I think it teaches them so much.
“We just come from a very athletic background.”
Matt said the social aspect of racing has been good for Kallie, too, providing an opportunity to meet girls her own age with a common interest.
CHALLENGING TRAILS AHEAD
Even before the 2021 season began, Kallie’s father knew she had gotten faster.
Before the races, riders can travel to the site and do a pre-race ride to gain familiarity with the course.
Kallie and her father rode the trail through the woods at the county park in Flagstaff before the first race.
“We were going up the hill and she went in front of me,” Matt recalled. “I couldn’t keep up with her. I knew she was going to be good.”
Age: 12
Family: Dad Matt, mom Katrina and brother Jack, 9, also a mountain biker
School: Legacy Traditional School
Favorite activity: An animal lover, she enjoys working with Ty, the family’s adopted Dogo Argentino mix.
Possible future career: Professional racer, veterinarian or doctor
He wasn’t too surprised. They would go to the pre-races and see high school and other middle school racers riding the easier trails. Meanwhile, Kallie and her dad would be on more challenging trails with a higher degree of climbing.
Kallie plans on competing in the ACA series next year and through her middle and high school years, but first has a goal for the first half of 2022.
“I want to qualify for nationals,” she said.
That challenge will begin in January. She will compete in the Mountain Bike Association of Arizona’s 2022 XC Race Series, which will include races with many of the same riders on some of the same courses in the ACA series. It culminates in a state championship race in May. The top 10 finishers in each age group qualify for the USA Cycling National Championships in Colorado in July.
Even though Kallie will not turn 13 until August, she will compete in the 13-14 age group for junior beginners. Her mother will join her, competing in the 30-39 age group for intermediate women.
This Christmas, Kallie will find something under the tree to help expand her cross-training regimen, her father promised.
With racing in her blood, a fierce dedication to pedaling faster and a supportive family, Kallie appears to be well-positioned to chase her dream in Colorado — and perhaps in a future Olympics if that’s where the trail leads.
“She’s super self-disciplined,” Katrina said. “She’d get up in the morning and be like, ‘Hey mom, how long have do I have to be on the spin bike for?’ or ‘Mom, can we go for a run this afternoon?’ We’ve never had to push her. She just has this natural drive.”
This story was first published in the December edition of InMaricopa magazine.
