This St. Louis Team Is Developing the Midwest’s Next Mountain Bike Stars

Eli Kakouris sets the pace, accelerating so rapidly that the tires of his Scott mountain bike barely skim the tops of the four steps leading down the front of Pavilion No. 1 at Carondelet Park in south St. Louis City. The eight other members of the South Side XC Development Team at practice follow one after the other, with varying degrees of speed and fearlessness and technical expertise.

That challenge conquered after a few rotations, the group shifts to the back of the pavilion. This exit has two levels and 10 steps, a hardly noticeable difference for walkers but a massive notch up the biking difficulty scale for the junior members of the group.

“Speed is your friend,” coach Deanna Kakouris calls out, encouraging her athletes to meet the challenge head-on. “Do the lean back!”

From there, it’s the biggest obstacle of the day: the steps at the boathouse. Multiple levels. Multiple steps. A steep decline. It’s intimidating. Eli Kakouris is first down again. In addition to being a founding member of the team, at 19 years old, he’s already a USA Cycling certified coach.

Nicholas Clark, another vet on the 23-person team, quickly follows with an example of solid technique. Concrete steps in a city park aren’t exactly the same as navigating rock gardens on a twisting, crowded mountain trail, but the techniques and mental approach required to master both are very similar.

As the junior riders take their turns, it’s sometimes obvious that this, as the name says, is a development team.

 

Level Up

A big part of that development is learning to conquer fears as they step up into actual competition. Most members of the South Side team cut their wheels learning in the National Interscholastic Cycling Association — NICA for short — where the focus is more about gaining basic skills and enjoying cycling in an environment that’s essentially competition-optional. It’s been a successful formula across the country, and Deanna says it’s a great organization for helping future South Side athletes prepare to jump up a notch.

Allison Wagner, 14, came to the team from NICA. Her love for biking originated from rides with her dad when she was eight and has steadily built from there, and the South Side team is a natural step in her progress. The boathouse steps pose a challenge, but after watching the more experienced riders make a few runs, Wagner pushes those fears aside and conquers every single one of the steps. Her smile as she rides back up to her teammates speaks volumes.

“At these practices, I’m learning the skills I need and gaining the confidence to know I can do the hard things,” says Wagner, who joined the team this year. “So when I’m out there on the race course, I have that in my head, and I know that I can do it. That’s helped a lot.”

The difference between NICA and the South Side team is evident as they prepare for a ride on the narrow mountain bike trail at Carondelet Park. Federer’s Folly Trail, St. Louis City’s only mountain bike trail, opened in August 2025 with South Side Cyclery as a big part of the project. The goal on this day is to learn to pass competitively on the trail — identifying opportunities and applying tactics for a successful move in limited space. Announce you’re passing, Deanna tells the riders, don’t ask. Be assertive. Don’t hesitate when passing. Hesitation leads to mistakes.

 

“My take on this team is that it’s not all about winning — it’s about development,” Deanna says after practice. “It’s learning the right from wrong on how to do things, and learning how to take it to the next level. You’re not going to be in contention, and you’re not going to be competitive if you’re not being assertive. That’s something that I really drive into them.”

Mountain biking lessons, sure. Life lessons, too.

“They push people to learn their new limits and find what they couldn’t achieve, but now can,” says Michael Zimmer, a seventh grader who had NICA success and is in his first year with the South Side team. “They push us to succeed. And, yeah, it’s really fun. Coaches are very supportive. The teammates are really cool to hang out with, and the fastest people are really fun to ride behind. You see their skills and see what you can learn to do better.”

Full Gas

To make the team, riders must showcase their abilities on the bike — this group isn’t the right fit for beginners — and interview for spots, which are capped at 25 to ensure a proper coach-to-athlete ratio. That process is important not just for finding the right athletes, but it’s also useful later on, when Deanna senses they’re being pushed to their limits in practice or before a race.

“Sometimes they get imposter syndrome, like, ‘Am I good enough to be here?’” she says. “I always tell them, ‘I wouldn’t have picked you to be on the team unless I thought that you had what it takes. Now, I see the potential, but I can’t get you where you want to be alone. You’ve got to have that want and that drive, and you have to have the discipline.’”

 

That discipline extends far beyond just time on the bike. It’s a whole-person approach.

“It’s definitely made me keep my nutrition in check, helped me get better at picking the right food overall and fueling myself,” says Clark, one of the vets. “I’ve gotten to ride with a lot better people, people I can learn from, like Eli. I see him as like a big brother. He’s someone I can always go and ride with. I feel like I can advance with the people that I’m able to surround myself with on this team.”

Deanna coaches the team with her husband, Tim, and though they expect a lot of their athletes, they pour just as much into them. Deanna has spent her life helping people build the mental strength needed to be their best. Tim was one of the best BMX riders in the country in the 1980s, and his knowledge of the sport is unsurpassed. A Class of 2023 inductee into the Missouri Motocross Hall of Fame, his “TK” nickname wasn’t just his initials. It also stood for The Killer, which says everything about how good he was on the track.

“He’s very humble about it,” says Eli Kakouris about his dad. “Never talks about it unless he’s asked specifically about it, or if we run into one of his buddies while we’re riding, and they’ll say something like ‘It’s TK, the legend!’ Over the years, I’ve gotten tidbits, but as I’ve been traveling to these races with him, I’ll talk to him about it. Hearing how he was one of the best in the world, how he won world-class races, that’s really cool.”

Go Big

Tim and Deanna purchased South Side Cyclery, the beloved local bike shop on Gravois Avenue that traces its roots back to 1933, from Tony and Donna Blackwood in January 2021. The South Side team, though, wasn’t part of the Kakourises’ original plan for their new business venture and absolutely wouldn’t exist without Eli, who grew up around cycling.

 

“I really love how they’ve done it,” Eli says. “They just ushered me into it. I played baseball, I played football, basketball, all that. They did a really good job of saying, ‘We’re going to give you all the tools you need to be really good at this, if you want to be. But if you don’t want to be, just have fun with it.’”

He had lots of fun with it, and he was good, too. He dreamed up the idea of creating a more competitive club with his friend Isaac Magers, and eventually he asked — implored is maybe a better word — his parents to run point on the team. They already saw the need for a development team for riders who wanted to advance past the NICA blueprint, so they agreed.

The team includes riders from ages 13 to 23, who are learning time management, too. In addition to team practices like the one at Carondelet Park, riders have to train on their own, which means anywhere from 100 to 300 miles on the bike per week.

“All of them love to be on their bikes. Everybody is at different points and needs different things at different ages,” Deanna says. “It’s really about understanding more of their perspective, because each person is unique, and in team sports, you tend to coach towards the team, not the individual. This is such an interesting concept because we’re a team, but it’s very individual, so I have to coach to the individuals, but in a way that will bring them together as a team.”

There are, of course, plenty of lessons that apply to riders of all levels.

“You can be as fit as possible, but if you don’t have good technique or strategy, the fitness isn’t going to matter,” Deanna says. “And really getting into more of the mental aspect of coaching is big to prepare them, because that’s where I see the biggest downfall, when they mentally are almost sabotaging themselves.”

 

Race Pace

The team competes at races in Missouri and surrounding states, but when opportunities arise, bigger trips are taken. For example, three of the veteran riders — Eli Kakouris, Carson Westerbeck, and Cade Pummill — competed in the Tropical MTB Challenge in Puerto Rico in February. Regardless of the results, the race-day experiences are unforgettable.

“The races can be really nerve-racking,” Clark says with a laugh. “We have our local UFD (United Federation of Dirt series) races, and those are a lot of fun, and even when you go to these national races, they’re still fun. The venues are amazing. There are a lot of people you can meet. There are pros you can watch and learn from. But even if you don’t race, I still recommend that people go, just to see what it’s like.”

The South Side team is experiencing success, which is rewarding for both the athletes and the coaches. They’ve won four state championships. They’ve had a slew of podium finishes by several team members, including nine podium finishes at the U.S. Pro Cup in Fayetteville, Arkansas, this past March. Many riders have advanced to higher categories by making podiums or earning points. All in all, the kids are thriving on and off the trail — and that pleases Deanna.

“When you see these kids, they’re putting in the time and the effort, and they just want it so bad,” she says. “Kids from Missouri used to go to development teams in North Carolina and Colorado. That’s a lot of traveling, that’s a lot of expense, and I feel like we have people that can be developed here. We have the talent. And just because we’re in the Midwest, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t develop our talent.”

Author: Ryan Fagan is a contributor to Terrain.

Top image: Allison Wagner rounds a bend at the U.S. Pro Cup. (Flannery Allison)