Humans of Fossil: Tolland Cunningham
Attacking the road ahead of him, Tolland Cunningham, a cyclist for Fossil Ridge High School, is very much involved in Fossil’s Mountain Biking team. There are about five students from Fossil who are on the team and they are hoping to gain more participants in the coming years. The team’s accomplishments include one of their sophomore teammates placing second at state last season.
The organization known as Cyclismo race in the Nikia circuit, with multiple conferences in each circuit. The cycling team is run very similar to Club Soccer. The state of Colorado holds two conferences, north and south. Each conference has about five hundred cyclists contributing to about one thousand cyclists in all of Colorado, or being involved with the Nikia circuit. In the organization, there are several different sub groups of cycling which include mountain biking and road biking. Each has their own challenges and requires different types of training. Races for mountain biking start August 1st and end on October 24th. Road biking races start in March and run through August. Cunningham’s favorite event is mountain biking. He spends the most time training for this event, even during the road biking season, so that he is during the mountain biking season. His training regimen includes riding at least three days a week and traveling almost 60 miles a week. He practices endurance, special skills, balance and even activities such as eating and drinking on his bike. With three brutal practices a week he has become very acquainted with cyclists on his team, making it possible to go on trips such as the trip they plan to take to Utah during Spring Break. In addition to cycling with the Fossil team, Cunningham is also sponsored by Phoenix Cyclery for road racing, in which he races all around the state of Colorado.
Committed to his cycling, Cunningham has been working at Lee’s Cyclery for about a year. His first few weeks of employment began with building bikes in the basement. After proving his skills, he moved up to the service counter. On an average work day, Cunningham usually works up front checking in customers’ bikes and answering general questions. He also works on general tune-ups or other work that needs to be done. He says it’s a fun place to work because a lot of his friends work there as well, and they get to hang out as well as help customers. During the school year, Cunningham only works on the weekends, but in the summer he works throughout the week and less often on the weekends.
Cunningham loves the outdoors and likes to engage in a variety of sports. He used to compete in yoyo competitions and goes rock climbing frequently. not as involved in those at the moment, but he still enjoys doing them in his free time.
“I don’t exactly know what I plan on doing after high school, but I hope to continue to race road bikes through college,” Cunningham stated. Cunningham hopes to continue to pursue his interests in cycling by becoming an engineer working in research and development for a bicycle manufacturer.