When Becket Pottinger of Murrysville advanced to the U.S. Ski & Snowboard U14 Eastern Ski Championships this month, his father credited his training — both on and off the slopes.

“He was beating kids by three and four seconds, and honestly a lot of that has to do with biking,” said Jim Pottinger, Becket’s father and one of the coaches for the Pittsburgh East Mountain Bike Team, a collection of students from Pittsburgh’s east suburbs that is entering its seventh year.

“Seeking the fall line, using gravity to your advantage — mountain biking helps with all of that,” Pottinger said.

When Jim Yurek, owner of Bike Lab in Plum, heard about the team, he called Pottinger immediately.

“My sons and I were into biking, so I called Jim and said, ‘I’m at your service,’ ” Yurek said. “This is what I love to do.”

As the team gets ready to kick off the spring season, there are more than 60 athletes and about 30 coaches. Yurek is the team’s assistant director sponsor.

“We’re a National Interscholastic Cycling Association-sanctioned team,” Yurek said. “There are about 1,500 riders in Pennsylvania.”

The group is a composite team, made up of cyclists from Plum, Monroeville, Murrysville and other locations.

“About half our ridership is from Plum,” Yurek said. “But we have some kids from Penn Township, Greensburg, even Mt. Lebanon.”

Cyclists work on biking skills and compete in time trials at five courses throughout the state, organized on Pennsylvania’s forested single-­track trails by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League.

Since its founding in 2016, the Pittsburgh East team has taken the top spot statewide at the Division I level and twice placed third at the Division II level.

“We’ve been very successful,” Pottinger said.

In addition to the larger events, individual teams also organize what Yurek called “dirts” — small-scale races involving four or five regional teams.

One of the larger events takes place at Boyce Park in Plum. Yurek said it’s his favorite.

“It’s not because it’s home,” he said. “When we have our race, we have 800 to 1,000 riders. I think it’s the toughest course on the state circuit.”

Yurek and Pottinger both said they knew the team would succeed when they held their first event at Boyce.

“Jim and I were kind of standing up at the top of the hill at the Boyce Ski Lodge, and we looked out and saw about 3,000 people,” Yurek said. “I gave him a fist bump, and we both kind of teared up a little.”

In addition to the Pittsburgh East team, there is Pittsburgh West based in the Moon area and Pittsburgh North, which meets regularly at North Park in McCandless.

Yurek said he hopes all of the teams continue to attract cyclists from throughout Western Pennsylvania as they prepare to start a new season this summer.

“When you have something in place like this, it makes it easier to drive an hour to be part of it,” he said.

The team’s season runs from July to October. For more, see PghEastMTB.com.

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