Hanover — For a first-year unit, the Hanover High road cycling team certainly didn’t much appear like rookies this season.

Thrust into the competitive New England Road Cycling League, comprised mostly of private schools boasting longstanding programs, Hanover’s three-rider team finished fifth in the league’s B Division.

Arturo Johnson, one of two juniors on the team, placed second in a photo finish to Phillips Exeter’s Garrett Kimball at the NERCL championship race, a grueling 23-mile course in New Hampshire’s Franconia Notch region, on May 18, capping a season that was more successful than Hanover had hoped.

Johnson placed in the top five at six of nine races, including three C Division victories, while junior Payton Stearns earned a pair of podium finishes and freshman Grant Woods scored four top-10s.

Race layouts ranged from a 3.7-mile sprint in Hanover to challenging climbs up Killington Mountain and laps around New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s road course.

“I think we’re thrilled at what we were able to do,” said Johnson. “The best part is it was just the beginning. We want to get a lot more kids involved next year.”

Stearns already had plenty of experience on road bikes, venturing on several long-distance trips with a touring group over the last two summers. Johnson, meanwhile, grew up riding mountain bikes and never owned a road bike until saving his part-time job money last summer to get one.

It was a time trials-style bike, a bit heavier and more aerodynamic than road cycles, with upwardly curved, elbow-rest handlebars. In order to sufficiently compete in NERCL races, Johnson — and his dad, Daniel Johnson, the team’s coach — needed to invest in a lighter road cycle built for endurance races.

“I joined a Google group called Upper Valley Velo — velo is French for ‘bike,’ ” Johnson explained in an interview Thursday afternoon. “I got connected with Dick Drummond, from Drummond Custom Cycles in Enfield, and he built me a pretty sweet bike I was able to get right before the season.”

Late to the registration process, Hanover’s trio scurried for sponsorships and participated in the first several races without matching uniforms.

They started off entering a men’s C Division collegiate race staged in Hanover, the L’Enfer du Nord (English translation: “Hell of the North”), hosted by Dartmouth College in early April. A nearly four-mile, uphill blast from the Ledyard Bridge to Rip Road, Johnson placed 36th amid 63 riders, almost all of them college-level athletes. Stearns was 61st.

Next came the first NERC race and a trip to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where Hanover demonstrated right away they would be serious C Division contenders. Racing four laps around NHMS’ 1½-mile road course, Johnson won in 16 minutes, 35 seconds, with Stearns placing third 10 seconds later.

More success came the following week at the Killington Mountain School Hill Climb, a steep time trials race in which Johnson won the C Division and Woods placed second.

“I think we kind of surprised ourselves there; it was a tough course and we did really well,” Johnson said. “We looked at our times later, and we would have been first and fourth in the B Division.”

On April 23, Hanover traveled to Phillips Exeter for its team trial race, a format putting two or more teammates on a course concurrently, their recorded time registering with the final member to cross. Taken on by Johnson and Stearns, it forced the friends to strategize and take turns leading, alternating who was drafting off of whom to conserve energy while negotiating the course’s tricky setup. They won the C Division in 10:27, one second better than host Phillips.

“The course there is really technical, a lot of hairpin turns and zig-zags,” Johnson noted. “After we won that, a lot of people were telling us we should do B races.”

They did so four days later at an endurance race hosted by the Holderness School, a 19.2-mile voyage from Holderness to Waterville Valley, N.H. Woods had the best outing for Hanover, placing seventh in the B race, while Johnson finished 12th and Stearns 17th.

“That was our first big, long race, and there are a lot of tactics while riding in a group,” Johnson said. “If you’re out front and everyone else is behind you, you’re using about 30 percent more energy than they are.”

Stearns indicated the trading off of drafting can make opponents feel more like teammates.

“You’re really kind of all working together, whether you’re on the same team or not,” he said. “You make a lot of friends, too. You’re pretty much in conversation the whole time.”

Now fully committed to B Division races, Johnson attended an 8.6-mile time trial event hosted by Profile on May 11, placing fourth. Three days later came the Grafton Notch Challenge in and around Bethel, Maine, where Johnson was fifth and Woods seventh. Stearns, nursing road rash suffered on a fall during a practice run of the course, was 16th in the B Division.

“There were a lot of uphill portions of that race,” Johnson recalled of the 20-mile route. “About halfway through, on a steep part, I decided to break away from the pack. I was hoping a group would come with me, but no one did. Six miles later, I drifted back a little bit.”

Johnson more carefully planned his maneuvers at the NERC championships at Profile, staying with rival Kimball throughout the Franconia Notch course’s gravelly back roads and steady inclines. After a furious final charge to the finish, each was convinced the other had prevailed.

“I was, like, ‘Dude, you beat me’ and he was, like, ‘No way; you won,’ ” Johnson said. “It was literally a photo finish, and the camera said he beat me by a fraction of a second.”

Finishing as the runner-up gives Johnson all the more motivation to improve. He began offseason training right away, participating in the Killington Stage Race, which concludes today.

Stearns, meanwhile, is riding in the Prouty 100-miler as well as the Long Trail Century Ride this summer.

Woods is transferring to Concord’s St. Paul’s School next year, Johnson said, but the team’s two remaining members are hopeful the team will enjoy increased participation in 2017.

“We’ve already done a lot of recruiting; a lot of kids have said they’re committed,” said Johnson, a Norwich resident who commutes by bike to school. “If you look around, people are on bikes everywhere. A lot of them like the idea of being on a team.”

Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.

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