Kids Shredding Singletrack! (also known as….Youth Mountain Bike Skills Clinic)
Are your kids hounding you to ride the trails? Are they surpassing your ability to keep up? Are they to keen to explore new trails? to improve their skills?
Sault Cycling Club is seeking expressions of interest from potential participants in a weekly mountain bike skills clinic targeting 11 to 15 year old youth.
The intent is to run 6 to 8 weekly sessions, starting in mid-May, on a weekday evening. The sessions would last somewhere between 45 and 90 minutes, depending on conditions (muddy trails make you ride slower, clouds of mosquitos make you ride faster!) and skill level of participants.
A typical session would include a brief discussion and demonstration of a skill or technique then the kids would be broken into groups to ride the Hiawatha single track trails, stopping at features where they can practice and develop the featured skill. The focus will be on fun, but there will also be some learning going on!
It is anticipated that instructors/leaders will include a mix of certified and non-certified riders. All will be experienced mountain bikers. Our intent is to have at least one instructor/leader for every 6 participants. Of course, this will be contingent on the number of participants and the pool of volunteers.
Parents would be welcome to ride along and, depending on the number of participants, might be asked to perform a “sweeper” role, trailing one of the groups and assisting the instructor/leader as needed.
To participate, your child will need to:
- be a member of the Sault Cycling Club ($15 for under 16, $70 for a family membership),
- have access to a mountain bike in reasonable repair and
- wear a helmet.
Kids will need to be fit and motivated to ride between 6 and 15km’s of single track trail in an outing.
The focus will be on introducing the kids to fun and safe mountain biking. The environment will be non-competitive and kids won’t be pressured to try any skill outside their comfort zone. There is no plan to have uniforms, team fees, banquets, awards, etc. One of our volunteers is a photographer so we will try to provide a complimentary digital photos of each kid, shredding single track and learning a sport they can enjoy for the rest of their lives.
If you are interested in having your child participate, please e-mail Peter@SaultCyclingClub.ca with their name, age and any other information you can provide that will help us to design a good program (e.g., skills or trails your kids would like to learn). We will use the information we gather from this expression of interest to determine the number of instructors/leaders we need, number and length of sessions, skills to teach, etc. When we have finalized the details, we will post again at this website.