Megan Matty

Photojournalism Student at University of Missouri
    
Mountain Biking
Public Project
Mountain Biking
Copyright Megan Matty 2024
Updated Jan 2023
Youth mountain biking is growing across Missouri and the country, and Columbia is no exception to the trend. Columbia’s COMO Composite Raptors were founded in 2020 and have offered a unique sporting opportunity to middle and high schoolers since.

This all started as a one day story for photographer Nicole Gutierrez. Initially she was just supposed to go and take photos of the COMO Raptors mountain biking team for a short sports feature story. She went there and got all the photos needed to create a gallery to go with the story. It was a couple of days later that Nicole and I were talking about the race and how neither of us had covered mountain biking before. And Nicole pitched me the idea continuing to follow the Raptors as they finish their season. We immediately started to brainstorm. One of the most important things to us was to show how there was more to the COMO Raptors than just racing. That the team was more like a family even if they raced against one another. Nicole went to multiple practices, races and even the teams end of the season party to show the bonds that they had all formed.

All photos taken by Nicole Gutierrez for the Columbia Missourian

Check out the full gallery here: Columbia youth mountain biking team offers community and competition
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