By Rhiannon Potkey.
There are no chartered flights, fancy hotels, or catered meals for Avah Cherry and her UT club cycling teammates when they travel to competitions. They drive their own cars, sleep in tents, and eat ramen noodles.
Each Friday in fall 2023, Cherry would grab her mountain bike, a bag of clothes, and her homework after she finished classes to make a four-hour trip to a race location in the South. Any time she was not at the wheel driving, the sophomore aerospace engineering major was in the passenger seat studying.
Once Cherry and her teammates arrived, they would pitch their tents in the dirt and try to get some sleep before the morning races began. After nearly two days of competing, they would pack up on Sunday afternoon and drive back to Knoxville in time for classes on Monday morning.
It’s not a typical weekend routine for many college kids, let alone engineering majors. But for Cherry, it’s an exhausting whirlwind of joy. She finds the most peace when she is on her bike in nature.
“It’s the thing I truly love doing the most,” Cherry said. “We’re not getting paid to compete for the club team. We’re doing it because it is fun. If it’s not fun, what are you doing?”
Cherry’s cheery outlook, talent, and skill resulted in a milestone achievement last fall when she was crowned a national champion.
Cherry won the all-around title at the 2023 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in October 2023 at Ride Rock Creek in Zirconia, North Carolina. Cherry finished first in the women’s club category for Individual Omnium, in which the winner is determined by their three best placings over four events. Cherry won the dual slalom and placed second in cross country, short track, and downhill.
Along with taking home a gold medal, Cherry was awarded a coveted Stars and Stripes jersey.
“My whole life was building up to that point. It was my dream to get one of those jerseys with the zipper,” Cherry said. “It just made the whole weekend even more amazing.”
Putting UT in the cycling spotlight
As she traversed the courses at nationals, Cherry often heard “Go Vols!” from several spectators.
“It was cool to put UT on the map for cycling, because we have some of the most awesome mountain bike trails around,” Cherry said. “We have 50 miles of trails you can ride from campus. That’s almost unheard of in other places. It felt good to show we have good riders, awesome trails, and all the ingredients to be quality cycling school. It felt good to try and advocate for UT as a cycling destination.”
Even before she discovered her affinity for cycling, Cherry knew she wanted to study engineering. She wasn’t just following in the footsteps of her father, Chris—a professor and the associate head of undergraduate studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering—she was pursuing a passion.
“I love science, I love math, and I love building things. I just always loved experimenting with stuff,” she said. “I was obsessed with space and rockets. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was in elementary school, so aerospace engineering was just a good combination of all those things—my love for space, love for exploration, and love for physics.”
Much like engineering, cycling has largely been a male-dominated pursuit. Cherry was the only girl on her mountain bike team for most of her youth.
But the tides are shifting, and Cherry wants to be at the forefront of change. She is now a coach at Appalachian Youth Cycling and is advocating for more diversity on the trails.
“I am trying to get more girls on the team and inspire that love of cycling for more and more people,” Cherry said. “I am really trying to focus on girls, but not excluding guys. I want everyone to ride together—dads with daughters, brothers with sisters. I want to make it more inclusive.”