Rozellville youth on BMX team
Scholl Fagan has winning race record
Thirteen-year-old Ryder Scholl Fagan of Rozellville is nicknamed “Rockin Ryder” because he’s already won so many BMX (Bicycle Motocross) races in the state since he began competing in June.
Announcers at several of the BMX races during the season shouted on the loud speaker, “he was out like a rocket.”
Scholl Fagan, a seventh grader at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Stratford, used his normal children’s bicycle in June to compete in his first ever offroad dirt race at Central Wisconsin BMX race track in Wisconsin Rapids. A race track worker told Scholl Fagan to start the race at the bottom of the gate, which is scary for new competitors, but he had a different idea.
“I told him I came here to race and I came here to win,” Scholl Fagan said last week in his home bedroom, where his BMX bike is on a stationary trainer. He’s the son of Cathy Scholl Zygarlicke and Dan Fagan of Rozellville.
Scholl Fagan pedaled his bike as fast as he could until he won the race in Wisconsin Rapids. He was a novice, or beginner, bike racer at first but he’s won more than eight races to advance to the intermediate racing class. He’s won 14 races in the state since June. After 24 main event race wins, a biker advances from intermediate to an expert, which is the highest amateur classification a racer can receive.
Tom Hampton from the Racer Army Midwest Brigade, which is an international BMX racing team, approached Scholl Fagan’s mother on Oct. 10 to ask her to invite her son to join the national BMX racing team. She initially kept it a secret from her son.
To celebrate her son’s 13th birthday weekend, Scholl Fagan’s mother took him out of school early on Nov. 6 to surprise him with a trip to the Rum River indoor BMX race in Isanti, Minn.
“Ryder was not aware he was on the national BMX racing team until he got his brand new carbon fiber racing plate the day before his birthday, Nov. 6, at the big race track at Rum River,” Scholl Zygarlicke said.
Hampton made improvements to Scholl Fagan’s bike to turn it into a professional racing bike for the Rum River indoor BMX race, in which Scholl Fagan placed second. Scholl Fagan was also invited to compete in the 2021 USA BMX Race of Champions on Thanksgiving in Tulsa, Okla. He didn’t attend the race because he wanted to spend the holiday with his family after his cousin, Zachary, died unexpectedly last summer at 23 years old.
Scholl Fagan’s professional youth bike racing career wouldn’t have been possible had he not recovered from a severe concussion he suffered when he fell off an ATV in first grade. His mother made numerous hospital trips with him to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to treat his severe concussion and he needed to relearn how to read again.
He went from being the worst reader in his second grade classroom to finishing the school year as the top reader in his class. Scholl Fagan credits his older brother, Riley, and his cousins and friends for helping him try out BMX racing for the first time in June.
