The first mountain biking race of Corner Canyon High’s Harrison Reading’s senior season didn’t exactly go as planned. 

On Aug. 19 at Powder Mountain, the two-time region champion had a significant lead that was literally blown due to a flat tire and, after limping back for support and then charging into the fifth position, he suffered another flat and finished in 16th place – by far his worst showing in a high school event. Battling back from that setback, Reading culminated his high school career with a win in the boys varsity division at the Utah High School Mountain Biking State Championships Oct. 24. 

It was a sprint to the finish for Reading on his white bike, wearing a white helmet and pink socks, in beating out Ogden’s Jordan Forsgren by 10 seconds while also ahead of 222 other riders. The victory was historic for the CCHS program as it marks the first individual varsity mountain biking title in school history.

“It feels great to have won,” Reading, the son of Colton and Amy Reading of Draper, said. “It took a long time and a lot of work. I’m just super happy. My dad has put in hours and hours of work to help me. I was doing the pedaling, but it was definitely a team effort.”

“I thought it would feel so good if Harrison could win state, but it was so much better than I ever had imagined,” said dad Colton Reading. “To see him come across the finish line, knowing how hard he worked and knowing the price he’s paid, I was almost without words. It was just the most pure joy to experience. I have so much respect for Harrison for how he fought.”

Harrison’s year could easily have gone so much differently, but instead, he bounced back from those mechanical issues in his first race of his last high school season to take second at Snow Basin Sept. 2, first at Richfield Sept. 16 and second in Price Sept. 30. Those placements secured his third individual region championship heading into the state race.

“We knew we had to do things differently after his first race, but Harrison never lost faith in his original goal,” Colton Reading said. “It was a path different than he initially envisioned, but he just used every race to get smarter and to learn about how to race faster.”

What began as following older siblings – Katie and Cannon – into mountain biking as a seventh grader gradually grew into something more when Harrison had a good race a year later. “Winning always helps to keep you going,” he said. 

Although he has also enjoyed playing soccer and basketball over the years, he quickly saw this sport as “a way to compete at a high level and be good at it.”

As a freshman on the Corner Canyon team, he finished in 11th place, out of 57 riders, in his first race after having started the event in last place. He moved into the top five over the next few races and finished second at state in the freshman A boys category.

During his sophomore year, he took first in the four Utah HS MTB league events in the JV A division before coming in second at state and then venturing into regional and national competitions. At the iCup Three Peaks Classic in May 2022, he got a flat tire and wasn’t able to finish, and then two months later – at the USA Cycling Mountain Biking National Championships – he suffered a double flat and ended up walking several miles in order to cross the finish line.

Four second place finishes in the varsity lineup during his junior season set Harrison up for a sixth-place finish, out of 173 riders, at state last fall – becoming the highest placing junior in the race. This past summer, he was 32nd among 119 participants at nationals in the 17-18 year old age division.

“It’s really cool to compete in a different setting against the best in the country,” Harrison said. “Everyone has good technique and there is a higher focus and level in those races.”

The hundreds of hours of riding – covering over 345,000 feet of elevation and 3,400 miles – that Harrison has logged this year brought him to the state site in Cedar City where he maneuvered the 22-mile four-lap course ahead of the field to finish his high school career.

“It’s been so impressive to me to see how Harrison has been willing to sacrifice other things to accomplish this goal,” Colton Reading said. “He needed to be very efficient with his time, both in training and recovery, and he needed to be precise in his training and taking advantage of every minute he could. He was willing to understand that the little details matter and put in the hard work, trusting the process.”

The 4.0 student said mountain biking has taught him life lessons in the form of the importance of practice and preparation, training and consistency and how to stay the course and handle adversity. “I have noticed that the elite riders don’t take that much time off and that determination to ride even when it’s windy, cold or stormy really separates you from the group,” he said. “I’ve learned to just keep pedaling even if the training ride is brutal or if things aren’t going like I was hoping.”

Harrison said he is grateful for so many people who have been instrumental the past six years for his mountain biking journey, specifically mentioning CCHS coaches Paul and Jenny Anderson, former Chargers coach Whitney Pogue, ride leaders, teammates, his family and others who helped to train him along the way. 

For now, the 18 year old plans to keep competing in the pro/elite divisions in the mountain biking world and just simply continuing the ride. λ