Organizers developing a formal racing program in Northwest Arkansas for junior high and high school mountain-biking teams say their Arkansas Interscholastic Cycling League eventually will include clubs and events across the state.
"We don't want it to be about just Northwest Arkansas," the league's director, Alan Ley, told a meeting of the Central Arkansas Trail Alliance in North Little Rock on Jan. 11. "We want all of Arkansas to be involved."
"This league is going to be your league, too," Kyla Templeton, founder of Girls Bike Bentonville, told the crowd of 75 who packed a meeting room at Whole Hog Cafe.
Ley and Templeton are cycling advocates in Bentonville who in 2015 successfully petitioned the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) to accept their proposal to run a youth mountain biking league in Arkansas. The 5-year-old national association has 19 youth leagues in 18 states; it trains and certifies adult cycling coaches, requires background checks for adults who interact with kids, provides insurance and limits events to trails it inspects and certifies as suitable for children.
That last item could require construction of new trails in Arkansas, Templeton said. "They are picky."
The new league will conduct races in the fall, Templeton said. This year it intends to hold four, all in Northwest Arkansas. Although details for each race are pending, Ley said the final event will most likely happen in November at Bentonville during the IMBA World Summit, a convention of the International Mountain Bicycling Association.
Otherwise, youth races will not be staged in tandem with adult events but will stand alone, Templeton said, to keep the focus on children's safety and ensure that young racers who want to participate in the junior division of the Arkansas Mountain Bike Championship Series won't face conflicts.
Teaching children to ride mountain bikes gives them a lifelong fitness activity to enjoy that doesn't favor boys over girls, is accessible to children fat or thin and builds character, Templeton said. "Everybody scores points in a NICA race, the first rider and the last rider."
Ley said the league will not require that children race to participate in a club. "It's not about racing. The races are really goals," he said. "If that's what you want to achieve, great." The association recommends that children attend two practices a week and support the events. "The only thing they dictate is safety."
Ley urged attendees who are interested in a mountain biking
program their child might join to talk to the principal of their child's school about creating an intramural or after-school club. Templeton said the league is not attempting to make mountain biking an official interscholastic athletic program through the Arkansas Activities Association.
"Clubs don't have to be associated with a school but we want them to be associated with a school if possible," she said. "There will also be home school teams."
In Northwest Arkansas, she said, many schools already have bike clubs, and 22 have expressed interest in the league. But teams will not officially be sanctioned by the National Interscholastic Cycling Association until their leaders have attended a coach-certifying leaders summit April 8 through 10, in Northwest Arkansas. Details including the cost of certification are pending.
The two said they are in an awareness-raising period and willing to travel the state to speak to school officials or civic organizations to encourage them to join the league.
"Why we already have teams going [in the northwest] is because all of the major school districts in Northwest Arkansas have received sets of bikes for every school in the school district," Templeton said.
Bicycle advocates obtained grants from sponsors including the Walton Family Foundation and area bicycle shops to provide bicycles and teacher training. According to the website of the Walton Family Foundation, as of September, the foundation had invested "more than $500,000 to purchase a total of 2,091 bicycles and associated equipment in the four school districts. More than 27,000 students participate in the program annually."
Fayetteville, Bentonville and Rogers have in-school bicycle education. The Springdale School District, which has five schools situated along the Razorback Greenway bicycle trail, began its bicycling program in 2015 and has bought more than 850 bikes.
Ley said that physical education teachers are doing bike units; the Arkansas Arts Academy charter school in Rogers built a pump track; and a teacher at Elmtree Elementary in Bentonville created a trail for his students to ride.
"Now we even have an accredited high school program, it's called a bike entrepreneur program that teaches kids how to fix bikes, how to market, write business plans," he said.
Advocates in central Arkansas should look for local sources of funding, Ley told the crowd at Whole Hog Cafe.
Karly Tucker of Maumelle, a fourth-grader at Academics Plus Charter School who attended the meeting with her older sister and parents, Mike and Kristi Tucker, raised her hand to ask if races would be "for all ages."
She found the answer a little disappointing. While sixth-graders would be allowed to practice with a team, racing will be limited to seventh- through 12th-graders, Templeton said.
After the meeting Karly said she believes mountain biking clubs would take off in central Arkansas. "I bet if we got a lot of kids together and asked all the principals, we could do it," she said.
More information about the Arkansas Interscholastic Cycling League is at arkansasmtb.org.
ActiveStyle on 01/18/2016