2015 Fall Mountain Biking Annoucenment!

2015 FALL MOUNTAIN BIKING SERIES

Fall camps will take place on September 6th, 2015 from 12:00PM - 2:00PM for the     10 - 12 year olds and will run for eight consecutive weeks.  Interested mountain bikers may sign up for the first four weeks, the second four weeks or for the entire eight week series (for a discounted price).    

We will also hold a 6 - 8 year old session from 2:00PM - 3:00PM EVERY OTHER WEEK.  In total this group of riders will have four sessions. Interested parents will only have one option, to sign up for the four sessions.  

If you have any questions please feel free to email rfurmanek@yahoo.com.  

 2015 FALL MOUNTAIN BIKING SERIES DATES

Sticks and Stones Camp (08/20/2015)

Day Three (Final Camp of the Summer):

The crew was back in action today in what ended up being a very memorable day of seven miles of mountain biking.  We knew that we were going to get rained on but the question was how much and how hard.  

Another special shout out to a father of one of the riders who joined us, Scott Hildebrand. He's an avid mountain biker so it was great to have him help out and ride with us for a little bit this morning.    

We began the day exploring some of the familiar obstacles that the riders confidently attempted or you could hear them excitedly say "I did it!"  It's always good to hear the riders get pumped up or hearing that surprised sound in their voice when they accomplish something they weren't 100% positive that they were going to do. 

After our free ride we had all of the riders take part in a friendly short track timed challenge.  After four of the riders started their trial, the rain arrived, soaking everyone completely (Also, one of the reasons we did not have a lot of pictures for the blog today).  Without skipping a beat the racers continued to ride and the bikers that finished greeted the others with a clamor of motivation. Once all of the racers had completed their rain soaked laps, we gathered and discussed a game plan for heading to our final stop for ice cream. 

We like to always end the week on a high note where the kids can continue to hang out and talk about the different aspects of biking that they enjoyed.  I'm certain today will be a day that the riders will not forget and we will not forget how great of a camp it was this week with the group of 14 bikers. 

Sticks and Stones Camp (08/19/2015)

Day Two:

Today was another great day with a phenomenal group of mountain bikers!  We delved into a bit of everything this morning as we climbed tricky hills, conquered logs, went mud-bogging and found three geocaches. Special thanks to Ryan Williams for joining us today on the trails, the kids really enjoyed you being there!  

Our initial warm-up led the 14 bikers to stretch their legs out and get them acclimated to giving each other at least 2 bicycle lengths away from the person in front of them while keeping their eyes up. While we were doing that, we were also intentionally heading to our first geocache.

Following that we continued on our way to our first "King/Queen of the Mountain" challenge.  Each rider was given two attempts to get to the top of a very challenging hill.  It was awesome to see how supportive each of the bikers were towards one another! I really wished we could've stayed there longer because so many of the riders were so close to summiting the hill.
 
Pictured below are photos from the "King/Queen of the Mountain" challenge, enjoy!

Kings of the Mountain

King of the Mountain

Queen of the Mountain!

Keep up the great work everyone, we are all really stoked that we have such a fun, skilled group to close out the 2015 season of Sticks and Stones Youth Mountain Biking Development! 

We are going to keep an eye on the weather forecast for tomorrow to decide if we are going to be able to bike.  If we are not able to do so safely, we will resume biking on Saturday morning. There will be a message that will go out to notify everyone of our decision.  Keep your fingers crossed that the meteorologists give us a good outlook for tomorrow mornings weather.  

Sticks and Stones Camp (08/17/2015)

Day One:

Today we started the final camp of the summer for Sticks and Stones Youth Mountain Biking Development.  In total we had 13 mountain bikers and four adults, including the 15 time X-games medalist Jamie Bestwick!  His knowledge and insight of mountain biking was extremely valuable and the bikers were all locked in when he was giving each one of them feedback.

After our initial helmet and bike check we headed out on a free ride to explore the trails and challenge the riders.  Some of the keys about today was that we wanted to instill the ability to keep their "eyes up" while they were riding. That way the bikers are in tune of what was ahead of them while they were riding.

Following our free ride and occasional pause to talk about how to approach and conquer different obstacles.  We had the riders practice going over a variety of obstacles to improve their confidence and ability to take on challenging terrain.

At the end we had a challenge where we broke the riders up into four teams and their goal was to "capture" one of the adults and return them to home base, all while navigating the trails. The riders really enjoyed this game and I'm sure they will ask to do it again sometime this week.  

All in all, it was a great day to be mountain biking with an exceptional group.  Great work today, see everyone on Wednesday!