Cycling Oklahoma
Cycling Oklahoma
NICA Getting Kids on Mountain Bikes - Dave Weaver
We share how a Tulsa firefighter helped launch NICA’s first Oklahoma season, building a safe, welcoming league that gets kids racing, families involved, and communities investing in trails. From scholarships and loaner bikes to short‑lap course design, we map the practical steps that make youth cycling work.
• mission to empower youth for life through mountain biking
• why NICA’s short courses and marshals make racing safer and more fun
• how teams form, coach training levels, and practice formats
• 2025 fall race plan including Purcell, Turkey Mountain, McMurtry, Arcadia
• economic impact of weekend‑long youth events on host towns
• Teen Trail Corps and 565+ youth hours improving Oklahoma trails
• scholarships, loaner bikes, and access for families
• aligning calendars so parents can race and support their kids
Instagram @oklahoma.mtb
What is up, Cycling Oklahoma? Thank you so much for tuning in to another fantastic episode in my mind. But of course I may be a little bit biased, but I want to say thanks so much for listening. Um this episode is about Nica, which, if you're not familiar with NYCA, basically thank Little League for mountain biking. It's a nationwide program, and we're gonna get into all those details. It's so cool and it has taken over our state. It had an incredible first year and it has a lot more growth and a fantastic things to come. So I hope you enjoy this episode. It's a little bit different as far as some of the topics we've been covering recently, but this topic is a big part of why we're trying to rework the schedule uh in Oklahoma for amazing programs like this. Amazing programs like this need space on the calendar so they can flourish and they don't take away from adult racing and adult cycling, but also parents aren't having to make choices between are they gonna get to ride and race this weekend or do they have to need to go to a kid's race this weekend? And so it's kind of helping by having a joined calendar throughout the year, things like this will have so much room to grow and uh people will be able to race bikes uh for themselves and with their kids. So I hope you enjoy this episode. It's a fantastic one. Uh Dave's got some amazing things going. And of course, you know these episodes are brought to you by More Overhead Door, a fantastic company. We'll take care of anything and everything you need when it comes to your overhead door needs. Uh, we sub we're supporting them, they support us. Uh, they are behind so many races in Oklahoma and so many amazing things in our state. So please reach out to them if you need anything at all. More overhead door, they're located in Moore, Oklahoma, uh 405-799-9214. Look them up, hit the googs. And of course, uh, Oklahoma Mountain Bike Association, rideomba.org. Uh, OMBA is doing some really awesome things. They have some great trails, joining forces with them this year or this next year. So they're continuing to grow. They're continuing to grow mountain biking in Oklahoma, which is so incredibly important. So please support them. I just re-upped my membership today. So uh please go out there.$50, you can do it. Um, they really need those funds, and those funds go a long way into making mountain biking in Oklahoma significantly better. So thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy this episode. We have a lot more exciting things coming to cycling Oklahoma in the very, very near future. Uh, but this one, this is a really good one. I hope you enjoy. Thanks. All right, we are officially rolling van. This one, I don't know how many of these I've taken on the road. Not many. So it's the roadshow today. All right. I'm excited about it. Uh I think I'll leave it to introduce yourself and then let's kick this bat way off.
SPEAKER_01:Uh well, my name is Dave Weaver. Um, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ryan came and joined over here, said he wanted to bribed me with bike riding. I did. I 100% bribed you with bike riding and to show you some trails. Um, you guys can't see, but Ryan can look right behind him at our rockyard map that we just opened up with our new jump park at Turkey Mountain. I'm so excited about that. I'm so excited to see. Um, so we'll go I'm not jumping. Okay. Well, it's a little windy today, but there's a 45-foot gap across uh the bottom part of one of the jumps. I'll post pictures. Uh we normally pictures with you flying. Yeah, and no, I'm I like my wheels a little bit closer to the ground, but it's windy enough here today. That run will probably be taped off at the top. Wow. Um it's a big gap. You're kind of getting some air time with that one, but some of the other stuff we'll go at least take a look at after we're done recording here. Super excited about that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um we speak ride with beer or whiskey. All right. Oh, we might have to try find a beer on top of this as well. Okay, I like it. So let's talk about you first. Um, I mean, first of all, I guess is starting where did you grow up and then let's get into black riding a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Um, well, I kind of bounced around a little bit. And so I was born originally here in Tulsa. Uh, with St. Francis, where a lot of people in Tulsa know that, right here at 61st in Yale. Was born here. Uh, my parents took a job and moved away to Colorado uh when I was first grade. So moved to Colorado, um, lived up there, not in the pretty sexy place that everyone thinks, like up in the mountains. I did not get that portion of Colorado, think more Kansas. Um when you think Colorado for me. The part you have to drive to you can do the pretty yes, exactly. Like that's where I was stuck for a big majority of of my life coming into high school. Um, I got moved back here and I spent like two years back in Tulsa. So I actually graduated memorial. I went a junior senior year. Um thought the last thing I want to do is stay in Oklahoma. And so I applied for college and went right back to Colorado. But this time I did go to the pretty part, and so I was up in the mountains. Yeah. I went to Adams State in Alamos, Colorado. So central Colorado, way down south border in the middle of the mountain range. Kind of down south of Pagosa. Uh yeah, like 20 miles south of or uh back east of Pagosa area. Yeah, in Oro. So right in that area. Um did a lot of hiking, outdoor, rock climbing, just outdoor rafting, anything outdoors is pretty much where I played. Um, of course, road bikes as a kid, the BMX, and all the stuff that you do if you were an 80s, 90s kid, everyone in that era. Like we all did the cinder block, find a rotten wood jump and whatever you could do. So yeah, that was childhood for me riding bikes. Um did some other sports competitively for a while, kind of got away from it. Um, had a skiing accident in college, kind of twisted a knee up a little bit. And uh luckily I didn't have to have surgery, but I spent a whole lot of time on a stationary bike in a therapy office, and they stared me like the bike faced a wall. Oh, and so I stared at this painted white wall for like an hour trying to re-hab stuff. Um, and I finally convinced the therapist that I would buy a bike and I would go ride for an hour and like do my exercises, and so I didn't have to stare at a wall. And so after a couple of months, he allowed me to do that. And so then I started I bought a bike and went out and I would go check in. I would do my little exercises, and then when it came to my stationary time, I would just go ride around Alamosa, Colorado for 45 minutes to an hour, and then I would come back in, check in, and then do my little exercise to finish and go back to school. Way better. Oh, it was oh yeah, it was maddening. Um, so that's really where I kind of started biking again. And then I found some guys through that that I started mountain biking around up there. Um, and really then what got me more towards mountain biking and other stuff was adventure racing in Colorado.
SPEAKER_00:Really? Um always wanted to do like a real adventure race. I've done one. They they had one for a big time in Muskogee called Port to Port, and it was super short. It was great. I did it one time, uh, flew over my bars, AC joint issues, and then had a paddle up the river for two miles at the kayak. It was miserable. I had the most fun. It's so much fun. I would love to do a real endurance or a real jurorist.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we might have to find one. Okay, I haven't done one for 20 years now, but they're a lot of fun. Um, miserable is the right word. It's like who can suffer the most? Yeah. Um I have some down in Simple Texas. I've looked down like six to hour ones and 12 hour ones. Yeah, I really like the 12 to 18 hour as kind of the go-to distance where I like to be able to play in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, or go really long where it's like three or four days.
SPEAKER_00:That's a different um suffer there. Yeah, it's watching those races.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:But uh that's a big one.
SPEAKER_01:So um I did that for a couple of years. Um and then uh wound up actually from there I transferred to UNLV. I got my degree from UNLV in Las Vegas. Why all in Vegas? Um, well, so the funny part is I went to Vegas to actually get away from the mountains because um I'm not a gambler. Like Las Vegas really has very little appeal to me. Right. And I was not doing so great academically wise in the middle of Colorado because I would rather ride a bike or hike or play or anything but go to school. Yeah, that was your Vegas. Um, that was my Vegas. Yeah. And so when I went to Vegas, literally I just got a job at a casino. I worked in the pool area and went to class and graduated. And as soon as I graduated, I left three days after I graduated.
SPEAKER_00:Any of the addiction like mentality, like, man, just want to go hang out in Vegas all well you could easily fall into that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but I was a poor college kid, so I didn't have the money to I didn't have the money to spin towards that, so it wasn't gonna go that way anyway. Um, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Kids hang out in the Vegas era, or do they just kind of like all the locals that live there are like we don't go out strip or um mess with that?
SPEAKER_01:So a lot of them don't live. I mean, obviously, you kind of either are there for college or you live like out on the outskirts, but pretty much everyone works along the strip. Right. And as a college kid, because UNLV backs up to almost the strip, yeah, everyone works at a lot of the casinos uh because you can go work your shift and then get to class and you can go back and forth between the two really easy. What a weird college experience. It was it was definitely different. Um, some of the colleges are pretty or the colleges, sorry, the hotels and casinos were pretty good about like if you and me work together in the same department, we would could sit down and play out our school schedule. And if we had the same job, then we would just look at it and be like, hey, I've got class here, you've got class here. And so you might work like this disjointed two hours at a time in and out, and you would rotate back and forth between college and work. Uh-huh. Uh, as long as you had the stuff covered, sometimes they would let that play. I guess it's just its own animal in every single way. Yeah. Um when you graduate, what you graduate at? Uh so my uh I guess with Nika now, I'm actually using my college degree finally. Finally. Uh finally, yeah. 46 years old. I'm actually using a college degree. I use a mind. Okay. All right. Um, but it is in leadership and recreation. Uh so I do outdoor recreation.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh was my degree, and it was under the hotel administration. Um, so yeah, I'm finally using my degree at this point. Oh, it's a good place for that degree. Uh well, it mainly is focused really towards hotel administration, is where a whole lot of people go to. Yeah. I was kind of the outlier within that college and group. There was like eight of us that we kind of formed our pack because we didn't fit in with the rest of them. The hotel part. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. I think you found a the better niche to this point.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah, the hotel life, like working that side of it and the casino life was really pretty miserable. That sounds terrible. Um, it paid well, it worked well to get through school, so it served its purpose. Um, and then when I finished up, uh I took an internship back here in Tulsa. I've got family still here, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, that kind of stuff. Um, so I moved back to Tulsa. Uh Did you keep riding when you came back or picking back up again? Um, I took a little bit of time off um for a while, and then I couldn't really find a whole lot towards the adventure racing around here at the time for a team. So I switched gears and started more to triathlon for the multi-sport. Yeah. So I ran in triathlon stuff for a number of years. Did you do that? Oh, starting about 2006 to about 2017.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, almost the exact same. I don't know how I did not know you really during that time frame. Yeah. Um, you must have been way be ahead of me. So you never saw me. That's no, not the same time frame that I was like into at all. Yeah. So uh you ever do Red Man? I did. Hey, FY. And I'm on the board there.
SPEAKER_01:We have I'm gonna have to start swimming again. I loved that event. It was a lot of fun. Um, I love the half distance. Yeah, we'll have a half. Um back in October of 26th. Okay. Well, you heard it here. All right, guess what? Guess I'll start training, doing some swimming. Swimming. Here we go. I'm gonna need some dates. Start swimming again. Right. Um, I'm gonna plug that to some other people here if they don't listen to it. Y'all the details when we get off here. All right. Okay. I'm in.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh. I'm in. So this you did multi-spore. Uh, did you stay on-road with all your multi-sport or did you do any of the extera stuff?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I really just stayed on road. Uh, did triathlon. My wife did that with me. So we traveled around, did triathlon stuff all throughout Oklahoma, Texas. Um, did an Iron Man in Louisville. Um that it was a fun one. I did the last year, it was there in 2017. Gotcha. Um, not really vamped again, but it died for a little while over there. Um, so I did that and then I did some crit racing and road racing, wasn't very good at it, but loved it. We have Tulsa Tough here. That was kind of the goal to race that a few times. Um, so that was fun. And then ultimately I really love being in the trees in the woods, and so I started shifting back towards mountain biking. Um, as I kind of started transitioning that, I started working with bike club. Um, I started working with the Carver Middle School program there, and a group of firemen and other volunteers helped us kind of start launching that middle school program. Um, so we started teaching mountain biking in the middle school and did that for a couple years, and that was within when was all that? Oh man, you're gonna hit me with dates. Uh 2018, I think was our first year.
SPEAKER_00:And so you've been like you've been involved with the kids. That's what I was trying to get to. You've been involved with kids on bikes for it's uh eight or nine years.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, eight or nine years now. I've been working with kids on bikes in a way from time to that.
SPEAKER_00:Because there's a lot of ways that you could go in bicycles, like yeah, it's like kind of endless. It is. What what made you have such a passion for like seeing kids get on bikes and and getting that skill set and getting out there and and learning that? Like, because for me, like I mean I don't love the mission that you're on. It is the farthest thing from enjoyable to me to do anything with a mass group of kids andor organizing a mass group of kids and parents and all of that stuff. Like it just isn't my thing. So, what was what made it your thing?
SPEAKER_01:Um was so I have to backtrack a little bit on this to kind of get to why the mission passion where this is for me. Um if you don't know, a lot of people know I work for the fire department in Tulsa full-time. Um that came about because I was kind of the to put it easy, I was the knucklehead kid in middle school and kind of going to high school. Um, I was probably not on a real great trajectory or path with people around. Um and I ran track and I played golf. But when I ran track, um in I was in Colorado, the fire department guys brought their fire truck to like every event in our town to do with youth. They showed up at track, they showed up at softball, they showed up at wrestling matches, football games, you name it. If a junior high or high school sport was going on in our town, there was a big red truck and three to four firemen that would sit on top of it with their lawn chairs, they'd watch for as much as they could. All of a sudden you'd see them jump off the truck, scramble, throw the chairs away, or in the truck, turn their lights on and go screaming across town. Um, well, they would show up to track practice, and I would run around and like walk the corner where this big red truck's parked, and these guys would ask me, Hey, are you gonna run this week? I'm like, No, I can't. My grades aren't good enough. I'm not eligible. Or no, I got in trouble this week. I can't go to the meet because I was a knucklehead. Um, so after like it took I was a knucklehead, it took like four years of this. Uh well, it's kind of a transition through this four-year period of it, where then I started taking this as accountability. And I was like, all right, so I started getting my grades up, I started really like digging into school. I kind of started evaluating where what trajectory is my life going on. Um, and I kind of looked at it as probably wasn't gonna be the best decision making for me. And so I really started kind of eyeballing these guys of like maybe this is what I want to do. Yeah. Um, and so then my sophomore year we moved again and I wound up back in Oklahoma, and so I left all that, but that that four-year period made a massive impact on my life and my mission. And so after college, um, I worked, I did a number of jobs. Um, ADHD guy, like I'm not real cut out for sitting at a desk very long. Doesn't work very well for me. And as we were going through everything, I wanted to find a way to be the guy in the big red truck, um, work for a city and go find a way to get back to youth. Uh, because those guys impacted me, yeah, and literally changed what direction my life was going. So I became a fireman, I worked on that, then I started volunteering at bike club, um, talked with the bike club guys. My goal was to really work at that junior high age group. Um, and really my mission was to find that knucklehead that was me, like 20 years before, right, and try to see how we can change that direction or mentor help that. So that's then where I started taking the passion of the fire department side, what I experienced and wanted to give that back towards youth. And it started with my club in Carver Middle School.
SPEAKER_00:And that's a great story and a great, I think it's a great thing for people to hear and know for a variety of reasons. But you know, me and a buddy of mine, like we always talk about it. You never know who's watching. Like you never know. Yeah, and you never know what kind of impact you're gonna have on anybody in any direction. And so that those guys, they're just showing up doing their job in small town. That's just what they do, you know. They want to come see sports, but they almost set the station or whatever. They have no idea like what that's led into and the possibility of kids' lives getting changed in Oklahoma, yeah, riding bicycles because they were there just supporting and trying to keep set keep you on track, you know, like it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I actually found one of the firemen about six years ago. That's cool. Um, and I wrote him a letter and I got his address, wrote him a letter, mailed it back to him, um, and then I got a phone call from him. Oh, and he had zero clue that I was watching and made it that he made that impact towards me. Um, he had zero clue on it at all. And he goes, Man, we did it because we just didn't want to sit at the station. He goes, We just wanted to go watch sports, and like that was what his crew was about. Yeah, they weren't really trying to make an impact, they were just coming out to watch kids play sports because they didn't want to be sitting at the station, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um that's awesome. What a great story! So it was kind of kind of fun. I get it, man. Yeah. But so that led you into with a bike club, and Nike has been around, and we know let's talk about the history and kind of get into Nike. Um, because it's kind of why we're here. Nike's been around since.
SPEAKER_01:When so originally Nica started in California in 2009. Okay. In and uh probably gonna blow this one since it's recording. Sorry, Amanda, if I get some of our history wrong. Uh started in Berkeley, California, though. It wasn't necessarily called NYCA, but they started basically the first team of it and started that youth organization that way. Then it formed, became like a neat league, and then it started branching out over the years to other states and individual leagues. Yeah. And so he came to Oklahoma what year? So this last year, 2025, was our first season of racing. Now a lot of a number of Oklahoma kids uh from even Oklahoma City area, Stillwater area, and Tulsa competed in Arkansas for a number of years previous. So we had a bike club team. Um, there was our bike club race team side of it. And because we didn't have a league in Oklahoma, we got a permission pass to go race in Arkansas. Gotcha. And so we would go race in the Arkansas series. Uh we did that for we started in 2019. Uh started racing over there with kids. There was a group uh before, and that's where Drummond Kids, I wasn't involved in this one. Um, I think Tanner had his kids go over there, Malachi, Xavier, some of the old original bike club kids uh went and raced some races or a couple races over there. I wasn't involved in that side of it there. Yeah, we have watched Arkansas grow. I want to say the first year I took kids over there. Uh, we got seven kids to go over our first year, uh, where I was involved in it. And it was about 450 kids that year, um, which seems big for Oklahoma. Like we think that's huge, but now there are seven to nine hundred kids in the program. It's huge.
SPEAKER_00:And when I see their races, I'm just like, oh my goodness, it is insane how many kids they have at those events. Yeah, it's super cool.
SPEAKER_01:It is it's really neat, it's a big production level. Um, it's put on, it's a hundred percent for kids. Wow. Um, and it's some of the bigger races around. Got it. Yeah, and then uh it's fun because Texas then also has a league. They do theirs in the spring season. Okay, and so we're allowed with Nica a one border pass race. So our Oklahoma kids can go to Texas and pick one race of their series to go race down there. Cool. Um, so we've got a race we're gonna target to try to take a bunch of kids to this year uh for Oklahoma, and then those kids are gonna see that. There's 1100 kids in Texas. Um, so their races are, I mean, it's a massive production when you look at some of the races.
SPEAKER_00:It's cool. The thing is, I was trying to explain Micah to some people all the other day, and I was like, just think of like little league, little league, little league baseball, except you're on Mount Mike. So it's kind of the way to try to explain it, and that's like it's the tamest version or the most watered-down version I can explain to somebody who doesn't ride bicycles or doesn't have a kid or you know, like whatever. I'm like, huh, I never thought about that. There's not a league for bicycles. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, this that's kind of the basis of what it is, which is super cool because you have teams and all stuff, which we're gonna get into. Um, but it's just a very interesting concept and a great model to get kids riding bikes. And if kids are riding bikes, chances are parents are gonna get involved to either like being outside because going and sitting and watching your kid play soccer all day is one thing, and you're just like, I'm not playing soccer because I don't want to hurt myself. But this, you're like, well, we can all go ride bicycles together, even if it's around the neighborhood or whatever. Like, it's just such a good um door to the entire family getting outside. Yeah, I mean kind of like bike club. I mean, bike has been that way for a lot of families as well.
SPEAKER_01:You yeah, bike club was a great model to to work with. Um, what they do overall is awesome within the schools. They really target that elementary kid, get him on bikes, get him, teach him the basics, teach them some very basic safety stuff, yeah. Um, and see what they're interested in. And it's nice that bike club, at least in Tulsa right now, has a Nika team as well. Cool. So if you identify a kid that seems to be more racy or have the skills or just interested to try it, um, then we can pull that kid into the Nike program through bike club and uh Alyssa get them going to see kind of does it a little differently, but I mean, with the bike club, she takes a whole group of kids.
SPEAKER_00:And she has since the day she got involved in a bike club, like loading kids up in her own car, taking them to mountain bike races and yeah, getting them there to do and she rides with them, you know. I mean, she, you know, it's I know it's different between the two a little bit, um, but it's it's cool to see kids getting on trails. Yeah, they're how everything gets better.
SPEAKER_01:They're off the pavement, they're out in the trails, they're in the trees. Um, I know the OKC group does a lot of the tour de dirt, like kids' cup kind of stuff. Um, and it's awesome to see those skills yeah grow within that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, to see a group of these kids, especially coming from the bike club schools that are in Oklahoma City. I don't know exactly how it all works here in Tulsa, but those kids are definitely kids that aren't gonna get the opportunity to go ride a mountain bike in the trees, like they don't have that structure in their lives to allow that to happen. So to see this kids show up that are part of bike club in the trees and experiencing something that's like so far outside of their element and world is just such a cool thing to see. Gosh, yeah. I'm I'm a full supporter and lover of everything that is. Yeah. So whenever you started Naga here, it officially got its first teams and got going um a year ago, essentially.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was about a year and a half process going through the bid process with National of putting together how you're gonna do things. Um we had a number of people out in the trees on the trails, all across Oklahoma. Uh, we kind of have kind of some parameters and events, um, not full requirements, probably guidelines might be a better word, that we try to accommodate trails to and venues to. And part of the process, because there was a number of bids that were attempted with Nica in Oklahoma before this one actually worked. Okay. Um, there was a part of the time Oklahoma didn't really have a good venue setup. So we kind of had some people that wanted to do it, but then we didn't really have the venues in place. And then as you've seen over the years, there's been a lot of trail work done in the last three to five years all across Oklahoma. For sure. Um so as that started happening, um, we put in another bid. Um, it was kind of through by club that we were kind of looking at doing it. Ultimately, that model didn't quite work either. Um, because it's it's it needs to be its own background, 501c3. It's got to be its own entity. We didn't really have staff for people, it didn't we just didn't have all the structure to it yet again. Uh so it got tabled, and then a group outside started working on another bid. Um, and as they started the bid getting through uh the process, then that was when I got asked to join back into it. And so we picked that bid up and um that one was accepted, obviously. And that was about a year and a half process in total that we're working behind the scenes to get all put together. Um so what's the actual mission of Nica? Like what are you guys trying to do? So ultimately, the mission of Nica for Oklahoma, it's pretty simple mission statement. It's not all long drawn out and all these buzzwords. It is simply empowering youth for life through mountain biking. I mean, I think that's that's it. And says it all. That's it. So we try to focus decision making based on that statement. Um, when we look at things, when we're looking at races, when we're sitting around the table, or we're like, what do we want to add? Where do we want to go with this? If you and me are butting heads on how we're gonna make a decision or what we're gonna do, we try to refocus the group now, stand on our mission. Our mission is to empower youth for life. So we're gonna do it through mountain biking, but our goal is to get those kids to learn to make life choices and decisions through mountain biking. It's so much bigger than riding a bicycle. It is. You're teaching them life skills, yeah. And you see that so much. And the big thing that I tell people, especially in this game, maybe segue to our coaching, or maybe we'll circle back around, who knows? Yeah, we'll figure this out. But a lot of times when I'm talking to people on it, what is awesome about mountain biking and why I love coaching mountain biking and I love Nika and I love the team aspect is if you have a kid and you're out watching him play baseball, soccer, most of it need a stick and ball or other sports that are out there, there's a coach running up and down the sideline or barking orders or looking at a clipboard, and that coach is still dictating play, right? They're still calling the plays, they're dictating what the kids are doing. Kids make some decisions, right? But a lot of it is still dictated from the sideline from a coach. Where I love mountain bike coaching and Nika and mountain biking and racing particular, is you go coach this kid starting in like July at the beginning of the season for Nika, and you're teaching them their mountain biking skills. So you're teaching them little skills of getting a drink on a bike, you're teaching them hydration, you're teaching them nutrition stuff and how that benefits them. You're teaching them how to pass on a trail, you're teaching them all these like little skills and uh coaching. But once you go to the race and they say go, you are a cheerleader. Yeah. Like you can't dictate because that kid's gonna take off. And so they have to make, I mean, we know racing, right? You're going down a trail for whatever miles, you have to make, I don't know, 982 decisions of what to do. But every one of those decisions is made by the kid. And the code doesn't determine who plays and doesn't play. There's no there's no politics to it. That's our goal is every kid on a bike. We don't have a bench, we're not putting out a starting lineup. Yeah, every kid has a place to play, every kid has a level in a category for them to play, whether they're just starting out or whether they've raced for a number of years.
SPEAKER_00:Which I think that's super important for people who are scared at know nothing about bicycles. Yeah, your kid's not gonna get thrown into the tour to France, your kid's gonna hang out with kids that are their ability.
SPEAKER_01:Which that, and I love like Instagram, and you see all the social media things. It's funny, that's also like the hardest thing to overcome because you get this new parent and they're like, Well, my kid wants to try mountain biking and this racing, but all they have seen are Instagram reels from like Red Bull Rampage, yeah. And I'm like, We're not, that's not us. Just think of the hundred percent opposite of that. Yes, he'll be doing. Yeah, I'm like, we're not riding on sidewalks, but we're not rampur Red Bull Rampage, but we're down towards like we're closer to sidewalks, we're closer to sidewalks. Let's go more towards dirt sidewalks, let's add some rocks in there, let's add some up and overs, let's steer around some trees.
SPEAKER_00:That's funny. Um so with when you guys got this, because and then we kind of get back into the coaching kind of thing and how the teams were. Um, whenever you guys were getting this started, what were the big like kind of hurdles that you guys had to cross early on? Was it finding coaches and participants? Was it uh getting trails to buy off on this? What what was those big hurdles that you guys kind of overcame early on?
SPEAKER_01:So big hurdles uh is coach getting coaches. Getting coaches is a big hurdle because there's quite a bit. It's not terrible, and a lot of that's a big hurdle because a lot of people have this like it takes me forever to become a coach and they've got to go through a lot of hoops. There are some hoops, there is some learning process, it's not terrible. We've got a number of coaches you can talk to and ask now, and we really try to support that. So that was one hurdle to try to really overcome early, early, especially. Yeah, uh, trails and venues, getting that to see it um and that organization to see that because a lot of people in Oklahoma are used to really long loops, they're low, we're used to kind of putting on an event however they want to, and it goes, and we kind of have a little bit more narrow parameters on that of where we try to go to. So getting venues to see that and getting trails that could accommodate that because there would be sections we would have trails. I'm like, man, this like mile works great, and then all of a sudden we're into this gnarly rock gar garden or gap jumps in there, and so then it ruled that out. So then trying to get creative to figure out how to work around that gotcha or get a permission to cut a beeline around it so that we could then still use it. Um there's a lot of hurdles in that after this first year. Um, the venue hurdle has really been taken care of. Okay. Uh, because I think people have seen it, the venues have seen it. Promote uh and trail bosses. A lot of the trail bosses after they saw it, and they saw that we put hundreds of miles on their trails and we had kids out working in the trails on them.
SPEAKER_00:Um well and trail bosses like talk about a mind like a unfaithful job. Like oh, 100%. Trail bosses do so much work, spend so much of their own money, or all of their extra time to for people just to bench more and complain more and to not even know who that they exist, you know, but only pointing out the negatives to what they do. So yes, the fact that and trail bosses just want a cool trail to ride their bikes on with their buddies, like that's why they do it. So I'm not surprised here that trails trail bosses are like, yeah, well, you know, let's let's figure this out, or how can we be a part of this? Because usually they're along that same, I mean, I guess, mission that that you guys are. They just want people out there ride bikes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Either riding bikes, hiking, they want their tri trail usage, they're a lot of time their mission. Yeah, they want to show off their trails, they want to show off their venue, they want to show off their area. It makes an impact towards their community ultimately, especially if you can get people to travel around for it.
SPEAKER_00:Some of these smaller towns, um, I mean, in central Oklahoma, Purcell's a perfect example. You know, they're they're cutting this new trail and doing this stuff, and it's a small town outside of Oklahoma City that people from Oklahoma City aren't gonna go to Purcell for anything currently. Like there's not there's not like this random hole in the wall restaurant, there's not anything that draws people from the metro down there. It's gonna draw people from the metro down there.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's funny you say that because I've made three trips over to Purcell now, working with those guys a little bit and kind of looking at it. Uh, we'll get into schedule, but they're on a race calendar this year.
SPEAKER_00:But it's the same for Claremore. I have zero reason to ever go to Claremore. Oh, you're missing out. It's one of my favorite trails in Oklahoma. It's one of my favorite trails, like as far as the country. I love it. It has everything. I love that trail. I'm not going to Claremore for anything else besides go run my bike. That's it. And so having a trail there brings in revenue and tax dollars, and you know, people stay in the night whenever they go to races and eating at restaurants and getting gas and stuff like that. So I think when communities, I mean, Bentonville is a clearly a wild example of, but it's a perfect example of how a trail can bring money into, and I think we're gonna get into some of that here in a minute, but um, how a trail can bring so much recognition to your to your local. So I think that's I mean, there's so much more to it than just riding a bicycle. Yes, that's what I'm trying to get. Yeah, the bicycle, I mean, it's just the tool, it's just for all of it. Yeah, it's just the tool. So now that you kind of got over those initial hurdles, you got into year one. Let's talk about how year one year one um was kind of a whirlwind.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Um, because you're putting on a bunch of races. Now, granted, it's not me. There's a whole leadership team that's behind this, there's a whole event staff. That is the one thing because when you're working with kids where some of the promoters are out there kind of standing on their own, or they've got their two or three core guys. Um, with the kids side of it, our volunteer pool is bigger. Yeah. And so that really helps dive in to put on races. Uh, because I can guarantee you this is not all me. There is a lot of people helping make decisions um on the group me message board of like scouting trails. We've got guys that have put man hundreds of hours into coaching, into learning what venue trails look like, learning what's acceptable, what's not acceptable. And I can call these guys up and hey, I want you to go ride this trail and like map it, and then let's look at it. Is that worth bringing the whole team over uh to really scout out a venue? Um, guys have been working on that stuff for uh even a number of years. Wow. Through going to Texas to go through classes, going to Arkansas to go through classes, uh working with National on some classes. So this is still shit. Come in from a lot of you. It is. It's there's a lot of hours put into the venues, into learning knowledge, uh, coach supporter side of it, of teaching the coaching aspect of it. Um, and that was the fears like once you put it out there, am I gonna get people that are gonna buy into this? I know that fear. Um, I'm living that fear right now. Yeah, you're like, I get it.
SPEAKER_00:I'm like, oh my gosh, here we go. We're gonna try this. Your first year because I always like to talk about the negative before we blow up the amazing stuff. What was the one thing or two things that come top of your mind that you're like, man, we really missed that or screwed that up or shouldn't have done that? Like, was there anything that first year that you're like, we'll see?
SPEAKER_01:Um, I don't think we had any major whoopsies. I mean, it was little stuff, it's event production, right? So there's always things that are like gonna punch you in the teeth and you're gonna have to figure it out. Yeah, and so it's pretty fun. Um, the Nica staff group behind it, we just laughed, we just yell out pivot. And I mean, we said if you ever watch the old friends episode where they're like they're carrying the couch up the deal, like yes, like we wanted a shirt with that that says Nica Pivot on it, and trying to restructure things because we're like, all right, we just showed up and there's playground equipment on a venue. Like we so that was one we we moved to venue uh because um we're gonna race it a venue, and then they decide to go ahead and start building their playground. And so playground equipment starts showing up, and then they there was also uh they decided to double book and put a baseball tournament at the same at the same time, and we're like, this is not going to work very well. Um so that was a that was a big pivot for us. Yeah. Um those are some good ones, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So had to replan a race, move things, like recall portapy, like all the things that go into it that you don't that you show up to a race and you don't need you don't realize it because they're just there always, right?
SPEAKER_01:And you're like yeah, there, but there's this spreadsheet and list of phone calls and things to move and shuffle and yeah, all these things to try to get it right. Yeah. Um, so that was a big pivot. Um, our championship race got rained out and so we couldn't host it. Well, we were backed then against Central Regionals, which is our region. It's an 11 state regional for Nica. So we had kids going to that, but because of that, we needed them to all finish the race series so that they would have their placement and call up set for regionals. And so it backed us against the wall of trying, like, there was one weekend uh to try to squeeze this in, uh, which then Joe at Arcadia had his race that scheduled there. So I had to call Joe and I'm like, look, this is not going to be ideal, but this is what I'm thinking. We're going to try to go to a one-day event, which isn't a normal Nika setup, but we're going to try to race on Saturday because I know I've got a number of kids that are looking at your race too.
SPEAKER_00:And so Yeah. And this is exactly how we should all talk and have communication and all work together. All of this work together in better. Yeah. That's so he's aimblown. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I called him and said, Look, I'm going to pile everything in on Saturday, tear down, and then we're going to bring as many as people as we can to come race in Arcadia Sunday. Um work out. And it worked out. And then we went to Arkansas the next weekend. Oh my gosh. Some of the kids did like five races in four weeks. Good to be a kid. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So let's jump into some of the successes that you had last year. So how many races did you guys have last year?
SPEAKER_01:So we had five races in Oklahoma, and then high school is allowed to go to central regionals. Um so we put on our five race series in 2025. We'll do five races again in 2026. Okay. Uh so we just released that calendar. We're still kind of working with one uh we've got one spot left. We're still working on a venue, so we didn't release those that venue yet.
SPEAKER_00:That calendar on our Instagram, but I'll also put it in the show notes if anybody wants to see that so they can they can have access to that and know that they're one plan to do this with a fizz. Yeah, that's awesome. So with with this move moving forward with that, let's talk about how and what it takes for a coach and a team. Like, what is what is a team? I don't I mean, I don't even understand that because we talk about every you know, there's teams and I follow a couple of them on Instagram and stuff, but like what is a team and how does it work and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, most people are used to mountain biking, it's kind of individual. Um, I know when I raced for a long time, like you just showed up, you raced your bike in your category, and it was a solo deal. NYCA, the other side of Nika is is really big on building community. And so that's where this team aspect comes into really big. Um, so we try to find people in a community or an area, and a team is based in two ways. Um, first of all, obviously, you try to find that staple in the community that could be a head coach and really wanted to take on, do the organization side of it. They go through every coach has to go through our licensing process, do the background check, but you're gonna have to do that if you are a parent in a chess club. Yeah, like right. If it's have to go to like training, right? Um classes or classes. We do. We do a couple things with it. Um, it starts off very simple to be a level one, just follow kids around and be a practice and be engaged in it. Uh, everybody has to do a background check. You're working with kids, you're working with kids, it's a standard, has to be done. Right. There's no exceptions. Well, you get three practices to show up and make sure you're in. After that, you can't show up again until you finish your background check. Okay. Um and so once you're committed into it, we load you into what's called our pit zone, and that organizes you into your team. And so you're gonna have that page with all your coaches, and then from there, that links you into some co online coaching classes through Nika. Okay. So we do uh NYCA philosophy, which is kind of the basic what we're teaching, how we're teaching, because our goal is to get especially that 101 and entry-level coaches and entry-level kids all to be taught under the same language. Yeah. So whether they're in Oklahoma City, Purcell, Stillwater, any place in Oklahoma, or even out of here, like you can go to Wisconsin and get it. If you went to a Wisconsin practice and fit in there, you're gonna have that coach teaching your kid the same language and basic skills at a 101 level, and so that they can continue to progress. Yeah. Um, and we go through a concussion identification. So if there's a wreck, every coach goes through that every year. And then we have uh level one, which you can start leveling up your coaching through it, and you'll start doing extra skill classes, and then we'll do an on-the-bike one-on-one. So every coach goes through what you're teaching to the kid. Um, and so you'll learn those 101 skills. It's pretty funny. We see some old school mountain bikers, we try to break some bad habits or try to like rein some things back in occasionally. I know I did, I had to bust some habits right off the start when I first started down the road. I was like, oh, I do that. Dang it. Okay, I'm gonna have to fix that. That's fine. Um, and then after you do level one, if you want to do nothing else, you could stay right there. Okay, and that's like an hour and a half of some online classes, and then you do a 101 class. Okay. At that point, you don't have to do anything else if that's where you want to stay. Now, a lot of people want to we offer a two of one, so then that's uh kind of intermediate skills. There's some more online classes for that, so that then you can take those, you can take the two on one class, and then it just keeps building on up.
SPEAKER_00:So um, well, it's it's great that I mean a little late could just like some random dad just shows up and starts like putting T bean balls on a T and says swing away, you know. Like there's no there's not a whole lot that goes in fact side of that. So it's reassuring for parents that whoever shows up has a concept of what they're teaching and what they're talking about, what they're doing, and it's a safe space for your kid to go, which is great.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah, so we really try to to build that. Um, it's a lot of fun because you see a lot of parents, either mountain bike parents already, or cycling parents, I should say, because some are we've converted some road cyclists, some other cyclists around, uh, a lot of non-cyclists uh that'll start getting into it. We've seen a number of like dads that show up and they drop their kids off, but they're like, This is the activity that I could enjoy this. So you see a dad go start his one-on-one coaching and get on there, and they might ride as a sweep just at the back of the field to kind of sweep kids up or help change a flat if they're in the trees, or help fix a chain, or um, just sometimes different coaches call it, but like herding the cats in, right? Because on a mountain bike, you've got oh my god, 12 different speeds of groups, and they're all over the place, and you're trying to rein this in or do drills. So um, but what's nice is I can take that dad, like if I took you and put you on one of the Oklahoma City teams, right? And you go through 101 and we're gonna pick on the Edmund team right now. So, Kent Manion, if you don't know Kent, Kent's our head coach for Edmund. Um so I sign you up, get you in, you do your level one, you go through with Kent, and he's like, Man, Ryan, we're doing a turn drill today. You've done the 101 basics. Like, I want you when this group comes through, identify these three things, right? And so you're gonna work with these kids so you can either ride with them or you can stand in the field in the middle of the turn drill and kind of pick those things out and help those kids level up and then jump on your bike and do it with it. We see two awesome things come out of this because the other side is what I've learned through coaching in Nica is most other sports, your coach is like that authoritative drop the hammer position, right? Like we probably all experience that at some point. When you coach a kid uh in the field, like you kind of have that because right, you're correcting him, you're still teaching him a skill, but it is weird. You get on a bike and start cruising down a trail with a kid, that kid is gonna empty his life story at you. That's for me. And like you're not a coach, it's like you're up here with him and they see you doing it with it, and because you're doing the activity, it breaks down a lot of barriers. Yeah, it makes double sense. Um, it's so funny, and so it is pretty funny. So that's kind of the coaching. Uh, you get involved with a team, we find a group that's close to you, or you can start a team. I mean, we have a process for that, it's on our website. That website's going through, our leadership team is kind of picking that apart right now of trying to add to some things, update some things, um, get a number of things out there from sponsors to build a team to coaching, all those kind of things.
SPEAKER_00:So someone has interest in starting a team or a coach, a parent has interest in in getting involved on that level, just reach out to you or reach out to the NYCA Oklahoma page and contact you guys. Or even your local team.
SPEAKER_01:So if you're in an area that already has a team, you know know of them. Um, you can find like those teams are listed on our webpage, and so you can reach out like email. No, Oklahoma MTB.org. Oh, Oklahoma MT. MTB. So almost all NYCA leagues across the country are all structured the same way by the state name mtb.org. Okay. So you could find Texas that way, you could find Arkansas that way, you could find Illinois that way. That's a great idea. Um, so they're all structured in that same way. And then it's all listed on there. Okay. You could email that head coach if he's already in your town, and he can link you to the pit zone, or you can send it. There's direct links to NYCA, and then you could list it to us, and then we connect you with that coach, and then we can load you in the pit zone and then for as well.
SPEAKER_00:Is there what is their responsibility starting and like financial responsibility, timer commitments, those kinds of things for a tip? Um wow, that's an open-ended question here.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, all right. So um Nike is a league and there is a fee to it. Uh, we're working through some of the structure. It's gonna be pretty close, should be pretty close to where it is. There's a couple little things that might change slightly. Okay. So don't fully nail me down on this. If it changes slightly, people, when it comes out, it'll come out. We're working we're gonna have to work through all the fee structure on everything because obviously everything changes every year. Yeah. Um, this last year it was$355 for this season. And so that pays in for your league fee and then all your race package together. Oh, so that covers everything. So that covers all of it. Okay. So you're in for the team. We open up kid registration in April with the season officially starting July 1st. Okay. And so practices start July 1 or whatever team when that team decides to start their practice. Okay. Obviously, there's a major American holiday right there. So you got some flexibility. And then you're you can be in for that for all the races and events um for this series.
SPEAKER_00:And they usually have is it each coach depends on how many practices they had and that kind of stuff. So standard.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we leave that very much to the coaches and the team. Okay. Um, to what day you're gonna pick practices, your time frame. It seemed like a lot of coaches put a practice after school during the week and then one on the weekend to do a little bit longer. That was a standard. I know um one team did a more of a practice where they had a big team practice on the weekend, and then they really just encouraged the kids to go ride one or two times during the week or kind of get together and pair up. Um, they just didn't have quite as much structure. We leave that pretty open. One or two practices a week, okay, hour and a half to two hours is a standard practice. Correct.
SPEAKER_00:So kind of in there, that's kind of what it looks like. And you and you have well, I guess that would lead into the schedule because we want to talk about that. Uh with their races, the races are covered in that 355 last year. That's last year's price. And so the races are covered in that. And then as far as going to races, you had five. We had five events last year, five races. They are spread out across the state.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Okay. So our goal is to try to move them around within the state as much as possible. Okay, good. Part of our goal is to show off trails all throughout Oklahoma. Um, obviously, there's some venues that really cater really well to it. And so we're gonna reuse some venues. We're gonna try to keep spreading that out. Um, I know there's a number of new venues being built and trail projects. I don't know if I'm fully able to talk about all those right now. Yeah. Um, but there's gonna be some other venues you're probably gonna be seeing words and popping up on things. Uh, like Thunderbirds one. Yeah, we're not gonna race there yet, but I know they're doing a trail revamp. So doing a podcast with him, uh right. Oh, good. Well, hopefully he is will listen to this or you can talk on that one and we can we can start doing a venue survey down that way at some point too.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, hey. Um, so what what do you have laid out for the vision? What are your five races that you guys have this year?
SPEAKER_01:Uh so we've got five races this year. We are looking at starting mid-August. Uh, we're looking at the new venue down per cell. Okay. Um, so we're working with those guys on finishing some trail work, uh, getting it done with kind of a scouting project. We don't have it 100% mapped and laid out, uh, because they still are doing some trail work, but it met the parameters for what we needed uh to be able to start the process to get an event there. And those guys are super easy to work with. Um, I got to speak at their city council meeting and with their mayor, and they were 100% on board with trying to promote their trail system. Um, so that was an easy kind of free throw for us, yeah, uh, which was nice. Um, our second race, we don't have uh the venue selected for it. That's our open spot right now. Okay. Um we're kind of working with a couple different places to see where we can, what gets done, what we can where we can get that one. But we're trying to come up with a new venue for that one. So that would that one might be a new venue. Uh third event, we're gonna come back to Turkey Mountain. Okay. Um, we're gonna we've got a couple little tricks up our sleeve to we've raced twice at Turkey Mountain. We're gonna try to shake that course up a little bit again. Okay. Uh, throw some new fun surprises at them. Gotta keep them on their toes a little bit, right? Gotta keep them fresh.
SPEAKER_00:Riding the same trail in the same race year after year after year. It wears you out after a while. It takes the joy out of something. Yeah. It doesn't take the joy out of.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and the the goal, right, is to explore things, try new things, try hard things. And so we're gonna shake that one up a little bit. It'll be at Turkey Mountain. We'll we'll leave those details for them to figure out on it. Uh stay tuned. Uh, then we are going back to McMurtry. Okay. Uh in Stillwater. That race, man, it was funny. A day of if you talk about an oops, like the kids obliterated me Sunday after the race. Like, this course was terrible. It was too hard. I was like, oh, I screwed up. Um because it was tougher than our other races last year, and it was stuck, it was kind of a proper mountain bike race. Right. Right? Had a few of all the elements, but it was tough. Some of the newer kids in thought it was a little much. And so I said they let me sit on that for like two months, and then I started getting some surveys in, and that ended up being one of the favorite races after they digested what they did.
SPEAKER_00:That works. They got the same mentality that we do as adults, where you're like, you're going like, oh my god, that was so hard, so miserable. And then, like, when it all when when you forget the pain, you're like, dude, you guys have to go do this race. It's so great. Yeah. It happens to all of us.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so we put that one back on the calendar. Uh, we might revamp that a little bit. We're already working with those guys over there. Um, so that'll be that'll be a fun one. Let's circle back to the mid merger here in a set before we end today. Uh, and then we're going over to Arcadia for our last race. That was our first race last year. We're gonna go there for our championship race, and then because it's championship race, we're gonna spice that one up a little bit in there too. He's got so many good trails there. Um, there's a lot to work with. Yeah, uh, Joe's good to work with. Um, he led us for a race last year. Man, it was awesome because I kind of told him he's like, Man, just race this. I'm like, Joe, I love you. I can't like I can't put him down a 200-foot boardwalk or whatever that is. Like, that's not very friendly for beginner kids. I can't do that. So um we put in a trail work day. We had a bunch of teams, kids show up. We needed a trail, we trimmed up corridors for him. Uh, we did a lot of trail work on it. Uh, we built a little step up that looked like it's been falling apart for 10 years. Uh, we redid that ramp. That was for one of our Nike projects last year over at Arcadia. Uh, we put a little bridge in so we could bypass the long boardwalk and so we could race and kind of reverse some trail in there. Um, and then we laid out a really cool course. It was fun, put a lot of trail work in, helped the trails out, help his venue out. Everybody wins. And so it was a big win for them. Um, Joe's been good to work with with a number of races and helping things.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, Joe is one of those unsung heroes that people probably have no idea exists, and without people like that running our trails like as trail bosses. Like, yeah, things things don't happen without people like Joe.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he did really good for so we're gonna take another race back to him. Um, we haven't decided exactly how it's gonna run. Uh, I've challenged our venue teams working, we're all trying to find some dates to get like five or six of us together to go ride it. We're probably gonna ride three or four different courses and then figure out how we want to link and put it all together and make it all work. Gotcha. Um, to make that one work, but it'll be it'll be fun. I'm excited to work with Joe and Ethan and those guys over there. Yeah, for sure. Um, and that's a great venue because I don't have to like parking, like go park out there somewhere. I got plenty of room.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and don't have to worry about anything. Yeah, yeah. That's nice. Yeah. Um so your season, the race season kicks off. What date?
SPEAKER_01:Uh so the season starts July 1 is practice time. Uh first event will be August 15th. August 15th. And then your last event is so our last event we are scheduled for October 24th and 25th. That'll be the Arcadia. So most of the fall. Yeah. So we NYCA is very seasonal. When you put it together, you pick either spring or fall. And then you go through with national, you kind of do a lot of weather studies, evaluations, and different things of kind of looking what's your best chance to race. We know it's an outdoor sport, we know it's mountain bike racing, we know trail conditions, like these things get hand grenades thrown at them and blow up at times all the time. We see it, right? We all look at trailbot and see your favorite trails closed. You want to go ride, it's the first thing you check. Yeah, open. Wake up, brush your teeth, look at trailbot, go to the bathroom. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So we all know the game plan. Well, I mean, then that that fits in perfect with you know, kind of what we're doing, what we're doing and planning, which I think is perfect fit and kind of what we're just you have a season. It's the way it should be. You get the season. So the season is starts in the summer and goes to the hall.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, and then we try to wrap up with central regionals, which that moves around within the 11 states. Um all the leagues that are in that. There's a lot, well, there's actually 12 leagues now because Illinois just got announced. So there's 12 states in that that are region now. So you put in a bid for the central regional. Um, it typically looks like it's going to be held there, and that's a new thing for NICA. Um, but it looks like a state's gonna hold it for two years. Okay. And so we'll we know we're gonna go back to Arkansas. That date was set by national by them when they're putting that together. The goal for the leagues participating is to try to have your season, if working, done two weeks before. Okay. So then I can send my season results into national, into the guys that are hosting central regionals. They can stack and shake up because they now have to organize 12 states worth of kids to shuffle and start call-ups and starting lineups and all that kind of stuff through all the categories. And that's first November ish. Uh, it's the second week of November. Okay. And so then they'll they'll host that. So the goal is trying to give a two week buffer. Uh, but we know if we get thrown the bad weather hand grenade, that gives us one more weekend in there uh to try to squeeze a race. And we had to use that this first year. So well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean that's the thing. I mean, there's always gonna be weather, there's always gonna be obstacles, there's always gonna be something that happens with a trail, a flood that takes it out, or a tornado knocks down trees or something. So having any kind of like gaps in your schedule, it's a must. Yeah. Yeah. Which is again why it's nice to have have things not on top of each other. Yeah. And you know, for them for the most part. Especially since we know that, you know, we talked briefly beforehand, you know, if it comes down to a choice, chances are the parents, well, hopefully the parent chooses the child's activity over their own activity. Hopefully, like in the right way to do it. So yeah, it's nice to have more open weekends and open days around because there's so much going on all the time in cycling.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and that's really true. And I love the point that you brought that. They yes, a lot of times, obviously, a parent is gonna choose their kids' event. Right? They're gonna probably put that on the calendar first and then work around it. Um, I know I had a big race this year. I was planning on going and scrubbed it to go to my daughter's stuff, right? Um part of it and scratched it off the calendar for me and didn't get to go. And yeah, that was kind of a bummer. Yeah. Um, this was I don't know when I'll get the chance to go do it again. Who knows? Might be a couple years. So I was gonna try to go with Ray Hall and we're gonna go to the uh fire games and then in Alabama. Gotcha. And uh my daughter went to college and they had an event with college at the same time. And so you know what? She's a freshman, she's playing volleyball in Missouri, and you only get to do that once. Uh I get one shot at that one. Yeah, yeah. Uh so we're racing our bite some other time. Yep. So my event got scratched.
SPEAKER_00:It's our man, and I was in Missouri for that weekend. Oh um, I know briefly we wanted to talk about this because and then that kind of lead us into things we're gonna talk about to wrap up. But like um, the economics of this event, which you shared for me at the beginning, which I'm not aware of and have no idea about, but I do know that you know races, especially when you're dealing with a kid's race, because it's not like when me and you go to race, we might be going to that race solo. So I may roll into Claremore for race. I'm driving up there and I'm driving home. Yeah, kids' event is not that way, it's the whole crew, or at least a couple of crew are cut.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, uh, it definitely has a different impact because, like you said, you go to Claremore, your economic impact for that race, you might buy lunch, you might fill up your car with gas. Yeah, pretty minimal impact overall to the community um for that. What we kind of see, and we try to track a lot of this through some surveys. Uh, we try to work with hotel chains to add that they're doing it. Now, granted, the mission or not full mission, but a goal of NYCA is to also try to make mountain biking somewhat affordable. Um, so we do this a couple ways, and this goes to the economic impact. One, um, two, we talked about the fee earlier. So, I'm gonna backtrack just a second here. If you've got a kid that wants to race a bike and they can't afford it, just reach out to us. Uh, because we do have some scholarships and sponsorships through a foundation that are there, so we can figure out how to make that happen. So just because you hear the fee to it, that doesn't mean we sponsored a number of kids through that program this year. Um, that wouldn't have been racing in the league otherwise. How are you how are you raising that money? Um, so donors, sponsors, funders, uh, some foundations stepping up, those kind of things that they put together some side money and we'll say if you've got a kid that shows up and they can't take care of it, let's know. And they they took they helped that out, whether it's a full sponsorship or partial or just meeting the need where it is, uh, we're very flexible with that. So we can make that happen. We also have worked with Trek and SEALs and Fat Tire on bikes. And so if you have a kid that shows up and you're like, that bike's not gonna race, make it through a race. Um, we've got a loner fleet. Cool. And so we can swap and trade and move things around a little bit that way too. So it's really kind of helps make that economic impact because we all know bikes aren't cheap. Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. And then it goes to that economic impact of as we look at it, um, we make a pretty big impact going to an event because for us to put on an event, it's not just an in-and-out race. A lot of times our leadership team and kind of key staff members start showing up on Friday. We do the whole stand in a big blank field, start putting stakes down, putting little race tape ribbons down, like how granted we've our venue team has looked at this before, but you know it. You show up and things have changed or things have eroded, or something's not mowed, or who knows what's there. And so you have to go back and look at your plan, start mapping that out again, make sure your parking is still good, make sure see where camping's going, seeing where your pit zone's going, how's your race flow gonna work, all those things? Um, so we start showing up on Friday, most of our crew that way, they're there Friday through Sunday. These guys are they're putting in a 30-hour week on top of every because we all have full jobs too, right? This doesn't pay the bills for us. Um, so they work 24 to 30 plus hours on the weekend for a race for the staff. And then for the um, so we go out, we lay it all out, we put some stakes out, kind of flag it, figure out where everything is gonna go for the race starting Friday. Um, get all that stuff lined in, your porta potties, all the basic essentials. So when you show up, you have all that together. Saturday morning, the rest of the team comes in, and that's where coaches, parents, that volunteer core steps in, helps us build out the course, setting all the race tape, putting out the race barriers, uh, building their team tents. Uh, we really we say it's our pit zone. That's where the magic happens for Nike, right? That's where all the team tents come in. So we put out Edmund team and Tulsa and Stillwater, and all these groups come together. I laugh because you have your team tent, and then you go look under that tent, and there's like four kids from one team, all the different teams under the Edmonton or the bike club tent or the River Parks Infant Force team, like those guys, like it's awesome. They just go wherever it's 100% the way it should be.
SPEAKER_00:It's not the clicky, crappy adult cycling thing where it's like you're not on my team, I can't talk to you. Right. You know, none of that. We should all pay attention to this.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, let's take lessons from the kids. Exactly. Um, so they go pile into each other's tents, and we try to pack that in because the goal is to make that community, because that's where it happens. Yeah, we want it close to the start-finish line, we want it to be along the race barrier, we want that cheering and engagement for the kids so that the brand new sixth, seventh grade kid that's just starting gets that fun mountain bike experience, the same as the high school kids have been racing for a number of years. Um, so we really try that. Then the a couple things we do, and this really helps me sell it. Other promoters, please listen to this when you're trying to sell racing towards kids. There's my number two big things. It's all right, parent wants to know their kids safe when they participate. So I have to have a trail that's manageable by a newer kid. If there's areas that's difficult, then what Nica does is we put uh course marshals in areas. So we kind of do two levels of this. So if I know there's a rock drop or a feature or something that's a little shaky for some of those kids, I'm gonna put a stationary volunteer out there so that they can watch that. They've got a radio, we've got our medical team in place. If something happens, we have somebody there that can start handling a situation, right? We also put roving marshals in so that these guys are just riding laps. So if you're a guy that doesn't want to coach, doesn't want to do it, but you want a really long training day, come sign up to be a roving marshal with us. We had guys do 24 miles at some races because they like wanted to sweep every field as many as they could. Yeah. So they just kept riding laps. Oh my goodness, just kept riding laps through there. Um that is funny. And now occasionally they take a pause, they might like help a kid with through something or talk them through fixing something, or um you never know. You have people we had people tear race tape on things and a kid go off course, right? We had a marshal that rode by and realized that and start putting things back together and wrangling kids back to course. Um, but those things are also what help me and not me, like our staff. It helps Nica sell the package of bike racing is safe. You can manage it even if the parent doesn't ride. That we're gonna take care of your kid, your kid's within this boundary, and we're gonna race. And if something goes wrong, you know what? We have people that are gonna take care of it for you. Your kids are not gonna lay in the trees and die. Right. Your kid is not out there forever, although we've had a couple kids go off course and we had to wrangle them back. Um, it does happen, but we have plans for that. We have teams for that, we have Marshalls in place for that. That's the biggest problem I have when we start racing outside of Nike and trying to take these kids to other races in series, right? Um, because we had it where a kid goes off course and you like finish the race, and they're like, hey, little Johnny didn't where's Johnny at? That's hilarious. That's terrible. Um I'll be back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, like that's funny. Where could they have gotten off course? Send done like 20 years ago. The amount of fun story, funny stories that you're gonna have, it's gonna be amazing. You're gonna have some, you're like, oh my god, this one time we found a kid. He was just like, Where am you they're gonna have to stop and started playing in the dirt and doing something else or whatever? Like, you're gonna have some good ones.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so like marking courses for Nika is a huge thing. We really try to mark them really efficiently, put course marshals in place to to do that. We put three or four, sometimes five course marshals on course. It's a um it's a big operation for a race.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it's a bigger operation for it. Yeah, and um how many roughly last year, how many participants did you guys have in four races? Uh so this is kind of fun.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, we were told when we started, I was told by national, by other people, some people within Oklahoma, they thought we were absolutely crazy for really doing this. They told me if I got 25 to 35 coaches and if I could get 60 kids, they would be shocked. Okay. Uh, we did 72 kids or sorry, 72 coaches in the state signed up. Wow. And we had 98 racers, but then we had um, I think it was six or eight, I can't remember exactly, racers from Nike could come from out of state and come race an Oklahoma event on that border pass that we talked about earlier. So or year one. So for year one, we had close to about a hundred racers, but when you put coaches, families, and everything, we were 160 to 180 people showing up to ride bikes for the weekend. Economic getting back. So it was, and that's I guess man, we squirreled on this one, or I did. I went down a rabbit hole. We're circle back around. So back to that like weekend, then you've got Saturday, that team comes in, right? We build it all, and then once we build it and the teams show up, they have their pit zone, then they go get to pre-ride with their coach. And so coaches break them up into smaller groups or big groups, and it's open league. They go ride the course, they get to know the course, they get to see the features. If a kid struggles somewhere, that's the time that the coach can kind of help them maybe choose a line or work on a final skill with them or something to get through. And then after pre-ride's done that day, we go pre-rides over. From then in that evening, it's awesome because you hang around, you see team dinners happen, you see camp outs happening where we're in the field, you see all this just interaction between kids throwing frisbees, playing ball, riding bikes together, just being kids, just being kids playing out at the venue outside. And then Sunday morning we wake up. My staff typically starts 6, 6:30 in the morning. We go do a final quick preview, make sure something didn't get screwed up overnight, make sure everything's good. We have our coach meeting. Um, the schedule's been posted. We try to post everything a month out if we can. Um well, like our schedule dropped months and months ahead, but then we do big race flyer. We try to get as much information out as early as possible. Yeah, that's my one of our main goals this year is to push it out even farther in advance. Uh then that racing schedule, they start racing at about 8:30 in the morning, Sunday morning. Standard races are done somewhere by 2:30. We know how race and mountain biking races go. It's it's ish. Um the other thing then we do, it's awesome. You see the whole community come together. We tear down the entire course, PID zone, everything, clean the venue, and then we have an award ceremony. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Um, so they're giving back their time as well. I mean, with the kids. I mean, they're learning so much more than just riding bicycles. 100%.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, that goes back to the empowering for life. Right. Because we do within Nica, that's just the racing component. That's what we've talked about. We've talked about the teams, we've talked about that. We have the team trail core program, we've got the grit program. Um, I know you had a podcast with Charlotte on grit and the girls. She's awesome with it. Does the grit, the girls writing together. We have a whole tent for the girls to from all the teams to compile into on race weekend. There's typically a project or a craft or something fun to do with that, which is pretty neat. That's cool. Um, so that's a program. The teen trail corps, they get hours for doing trail work. Uh, that's where this year we did. I could actually, I think I'm on it real quick. Give me a second. I can pull up the actual number. But it's over 600 hours worth of trail work that the kids and teams put in super to Oklahoma Trails. So that goes where we've already started a few discussions with trying to work with OMBA, and I know you've talked to those guys too, to do more to try to give the teams to get back towards more trails. Um, because it takes stuff to maintain the trails so we can keep riding.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's awesome to see that there's so many lessons outside of just going riding your bicycle. I mean, like they're learning so much more than riding a bicycle. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So tracked hours, the coaches log 565 hours. My goodness. But I know I did a lot of hours that were not logged. I know a number of coaches I saw out with weed eaters or whatever that I know were out doing trail work that was not logged here. Right. But those are the kids' hours. So 565 hours of kid hours digging in the dirt, repairing trails, giving back.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome. Wow, what a difference. So and then you stretch this over the next 10, 15, 20 years of what that looks like. And this is year one with the amount of kids that you had in year one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this was year one with 10 teams, 98 riders. Yeah, you think that growing review 400 kids?
SPEAKER_00:Like it's wild. Yeah, yeah. This is this is awesome. Like, what a change this could have made for everything, like trail-wise, and long.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the trail work that could get done out of this, I think, could be huge. The venues that we talked to, I know I've talked Jeff Edwards, has reached out to me directly with Turkey Mountain. Obviously, we're sitting in their office space right now recording this, so they're a big partner with Nica. Um, the Infinite Force team did a bunch of trail work on the Turkey Mountain trails to make things raceable there for us. The bike club team worked very heavy in the Lubell Moosser Trail system uh for their practice venue area. So it wasn't even a race venue for us, but to keep their practice area up. So that was big. The Edmund team uh worked at the Arcadia Trails. Um, we've had people go work in the Purcell trails. Um, we're working with those guys in January to try to launch something uh which should be out here pretty quick to try to go work with Purcell to help them clean some things up and get trail hours done down there. Um I worked with the Skip guys and uh Pete over at Skip and did a bunch of trail work to make that raceable and help us out down that way and help their trails out.
SPEAKER_00:Um I mean just leaving so much more of a legacy than somebody coming up riding mount bikes and they become fast. Like okay, yeah, that's cool. That's awesome. Like we if another like little drumming comes through, boy or girl drumming, um, if we get that next version of that, it's super cool, right? But if we have better humans that come out, that's well then for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's the big win, and especially then trying to keep some of these kids here. Um, love what the drumming kids have done, right? They've like showcased Oklahoma mountain bike racing for in what all disciplines. Yeah. Um, gone off and done big things with it. That's like it's super cool to see that. A lot of our kids know those kids anyway and follow them. Yeah, so they know the impact and what they've done and how fast they are, and um just what they've done.
SPEAKER_00:And Malachi over in I mean, he's doing his own vibe of thing in Arkansas. Right. I saw him the other day on YouTube on the impossible route as the like the third. Have you seen that? I haven't seen that one. I was watching, so if you watches YouTube, there's used to be uh on the vegan cycles, yeah, the impossible route that he did. It was like a special thing that broke off and it's its own thing now. Well, they just did one that came out like in November in Arkansas, and they rode uh northwest Arkansas on this travel route. It was um so it was so Tyler come back and do that one? Did Vegan no? He didn't, but Jeremiah did okay, Jeremiah and uh Alex House and Malachi Caldwell. Oh yeah, like we need a local guy, and that's who that's who they got. Yeah, but I'm like, this guy started in Tulsa, you know. I mean, like, or they started in Oklahoma City throughout there, and you just never know where the bicycle's gonna take you and where you're gonna end up, and like what kind of like random legacy it ends up touching and maintenance. It's pretty cool, yeah. That's pretty awesome. I hadn't seen that one. I'm gonna have to go look it up now because I like those. Yeah, it's super cool. It's a good one, it's a good one. So um, but yeah, I think that's awesome that you're you're raising people on bicycles, super cool. It's a lifelong sport. I grew up in Ba, it's a lifelong sport. I got to do it with my dad, you know. My dad just turned 75. I hadn't played golf with him and because I quit playing, and I haven't played with him probably in 15 plus years. And about two months ago, I went out and played with him and his boys, and now they're all like you know, 70 to 80. The youngest one in the group was probably late 60s, and I'm like, it's just we I can I mean you can't do this with anything else, but you can do advice. Yeah, you know, so true. You're you're raising families that can have these memories that last a lifetime, which is awesome, but also it makes our state better because we have healthier individuals. They're you kids, some of these kids, it's the adult that they need in their life, you know. Yes, it's the activity that they need to get them away from a bad situation. I mean, there's nothing negative, there's only great things that are gonna come out of it if people just continue to support it if you do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's a lot of things. The family interaction has been really awesome to see. Um watching some of the new coaches join and family members join this year. That's where we got those 72 coaches because obviously we didn't start with that many. Uh, but a number of it was their dads or moms that took an interest in what their kid was doing. They necessarily didn't ride, or maybe they rode a road bike some and they switched over, started riding a mountain bike because they could go do it with their kid because that's what their kid wanted. And awesome. So um, so they started riding. And then even we even had a few of those uh new parent coaches do a first race this year, which was kind of fun too.
SPEAKER_00:You'd mentioned that so they would show up and the parents would do like a cat three race and get going, and then you had the kids doing the the kids' races, yeah, at some of the local events.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it's funny because some of the kids are doing like the cat two race, and the parents are doing the cat three race because they're the kids keep those kids.
SPEAKER_00:Well, they're we in the younger division, so I don't fine. I'm I've aged up now, so they won't give you five anymore, so that's fine. Yeah, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, now they ride through us because they start behind us. And then like, hey, passing on your left. My own son called me out at a race uh at Cold Turkey. They started like two minutes behind us or a minute behind us or something. That was his goal. He actually told me like I was the rabbit for it, and I was up on top of the ridge where it snaked back up, and he was down below. Yeah, and I hear this, hey papa. I was like, damn it, I knew it. I knew dang it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, that's the worst feeling. Yeah, nine. That's funny. Yeah, well, I do want to circle back to one final thing before we get out of here. It's um you are doing an uh an event with well, right now it's called GCX. We'll we'll release some of the other future changes and things that were happening with that. But you are going to be the race director, uh Mercury for the series episode happening, which is going to be an awesome fit because I'm hoping again, we're not telling anybody what they have to do, but we're hoping that all of our races can be a you know, kid-friendly, Nika-friendly kids race. We're hoping that I think most of the trails probably will be, maybe not all of them, but most of them will be Nika friendly. Um, so the kids can come race in the springtime and have a group of races that they can do outside of the official Nika. Then you have your official NYKA stuff in the fall, but you're doing an event um inside of our race series Mercury. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So it's gonna be a fundraiser for you guys. It is, it's gonna be a fundraiser for NYCA. So that's where the proceeds are gonna go back to is funding that. And how that'll be used is either for some new equipment that we need to try to expand some things, uh replace some equipment, stuff that we need. Um thieves happen. We actually got broken into, lost a little bit of equipment, so it might go towards that. Uh any extra money will go towards that scholarship fund, put that aside in that money, so then hopefully we can expand it. The goal is to go find like that next kid that may not be on a bike yet and that wants to have a part of it and find a way to get them in the program. And so the fundraiser that race, the funds will also some funds will be set to target for that fund as well.
SPEAKER_00:You're wanting to do it a little bit outside of the different typical source that's in the series.
SPEAKER_01:I want to do things a little bit differently um with that. And I've I took this to Bobby. Um, I know those guys did some more shorter course format things. That's a lot of what Nike is about. Uh, because the last thing when you drive across the state, you're as a parent, you don't want to see your kid take off for a race. You see them for 15 seconds off the start and they come back 45 minutes later and you see them for 15 seconds to finish if you didn't turn your back and miss it, right? Like that sucks. It's good. So part of what we're trying to do with Nica is we really target our courses to be a lot shorter. And if we can get in like a 3.2 to a maximum five-mile lap, and that is the range that we target for a race course, and then we'll run multiple laps on it so parents can see their kids a number of times. And if we can find a way to fold a course back by the pit zone area so you can see your kid multiple times a lap, or maybe make it where it's a short walk to see another viewing point. Uh, we try to make it as spectator friendly as possible.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean that's huge because I mean there's been times where like you my my girlfriend, she's like, she's like, You want me to come? I'm like, no, like you're not gonna see me. It's gonna be a miserable that you're just gonna sit there and have no idea what's going on. Like it yeah, it's you're gonna see me when I start when I yeah, that's it. So that's huge respect.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so we try to make it spectator friendly. What I want to do, and we really want to promote this out to all the promoters, whether you're in the series or not in the series, whether you ride mountain bikes a lot or a little, we're gonna set it up and run it like a Nika event with all the production that we do, all the setup that we do, um, because I really want other people to come race this and see it so they know exactly what a kid feels at a Nika event. I love it. So we're gonna do it. If you're your first time mountain biker to a cat one racer, you're gonna look and see and feel what a Nika event feels like. Now, my upper racers, get ready to do more laps and go have fun. That's what we're gonna do. Yeah, but you're gonna see how the course is marked, you're gonna see what it looks like, you're gonna see the safety measures that we put in place, and we're gonna do it for all the levels for the adults, for the kids, and promote it that way. Um, we'll also work at having probably a coach clinic out there and some recruitment for it because I'm hoping that some of these guys, we have a lot of mountain bike racers in that really are not part of Nika or part of a coaching. And just because you sign up as a coach doesn't mean you have to be at every single practice. If we know your work schedule is whatever, and we you talk to your team and go, Man, I can be here the third Thursday and the second Saturday of every month. You know what? Great. We'll take it. We'll take it. Get your coach license, come out, ride your bike with kids where you can. As long as you commit to a little bit of time here and there for it, um, that's what works. And then you impact those kids to it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think it's awesome that you're gonna get some exposure to a whole bunch of people that either don't have kids or don't enough don't know anything about it, and that could potentially become coaches, could potentially become, you know, sponsors of your scholarship fund or sponsors of events, or opening the eyes to people that have no that would never get to see this in any other way. Like the fact that hopefully we can bring a group of adults to this race by helping cross-promote and do all that stuff, and it's part of the series, that will hopefully give exposure to people that I mean, I'm never go see a Nike event. Like, I'm gonna change that. Right. Well, I'm gonna drag you to one how to be, you know, like outside of having a connection or a passion for this stuff, there'd be no reason for me to go. And so I think it's gonna be a great way that I that hopefully a lot of people can get exposed to some really cool, exciting things that are happening in Oklahoma. And that's the whole point. It's like this is all growing and this is all getting better. So, like, how can we all do it together? I think this is a great way to cross holiday and show like some really cool stuff that's happening and hopefully it gets more people involved somehow, some way. Yeah, yeah. So it'll be fun about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you're not gonna show up to one, I've got an open date, like race two may be in your backyard, so you're gonna be forced to show up. Drag.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm glad that Steve Merchers coming back on board and coming back into the to the adult racing scene because it's such a great, it's such a great system. Um, and so it's nice to see that. And I know they're having endurance event out there uh this winter as well.
SPEAKER_01:I heard I heard that. I saw something about that. Um, they've been good to work with. Uh last year we had a great event with it, with it last year with them. Uh the trails, like you said, they're a lot of fun. They are fun. Uh, we had to get a little creative to make it happen there. Uh, but it was awesome because they worked with us and let us help and move things around. That's where some of that trail work came in.
SPEAKER_00:Um, it's a great trail system. They have a lot of trail out there and it has everything. So if you just want to go out and ride your bike, that's a great place to go ride your bike. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Even if we set it up like a full nike event um and do it that way, you're gonna have a proper mountain bike race because over at McMurtry, you're gonna have your single track, you're gonna have your open stuff, you're gonna have your flow stuff. I'm not gonna water down everything. You're still gonna have your little rocks and tech. Um I like it. That's your odds. You're you're gonna mix it up. So I don't like it.
SPEAKER_00:No matter where you're at, yeah. That's gonna be a fun race. I'm excited about that one. Good. Really excited about that one. Um, is there anything that's uh we did man?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I think we hit it. We hit the culture, we hit the community, yeah, we hit the other stuff. The fun one is in, and we talked, I guess, lightly about it, is just with the other race series stuff. Um, we do want to put kids, we want to showcase the other race series, we want to showcase the other events where we can. No, we don't trying to pick on your event if we don't. Yeah. Um, one of my good friends, and he is a Nike coach, is trying to look at the Keystone race. Um, that one, Keystone is tough, it's technical, it's a hard place to ride a little bit. Yeah, it's not new kid friendly. For sure. And so, like, that's gonna be one. We'll get a some kids to it, right? It's not gonna be one I'm gonna push out there to all the coaches and families. Yeah, for sure. Um, there's other venues that kind of fit that same bill. There's other venues that work really well to it. Um, getting kind of some distances, course marking information to us early helps us promote events. Yeah. Um, it is, I would say the Nike culture, the other side of this where you see it is different. There's gonna be a mentality shift in Oklahoma. Um, hopefully people don't get mad at me, but mountain bikers are notorious right now. People are gonna get mad at me. Okay, awesome. Awesome. Well, your show gets canceled, not mine. It's all right, I'm just getting lined. All right. Um, but mountain bikers right are notorious for signing up for an event four days before the event, which you stress promoters out on. Right. We hate it. Yes, it sucks. Uh-huh. Uh, because you're you're paying all your bills long before that event ever gets there. You're writing checks. Um, so just sign up for the races ahead of time, people. But with that, Nike, because of what we do and starting the early fee system and buying in for a series, and you're putting that in, these parents are getting trained in a way to look at events long term ahead and plan their calendars. I already have Nike parents. I'm we're off season, I'm supposed to be in vacation mode, right? I'm supposed to be in holidays, and they are blowing me up. Like, what does our schedule look like? When are we going? Hey, I want to plan our races in March. What do we look like in April? Where are we going in June? What does next year look like? They're pulling the trigger and signing up for races in March now. Yeah. So, but on that, they're not going to go sign up for a race unless they kind of see what a course looks like. Yeah, like they want to know what the distances are. So if you don't release the information or you kind of hold it, or there's not a flyer out, your race is not going to get attended because they're going to go find something else to put on the calendar to go race.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's say this as of December 10th, when we are recording this, the NICA schedule is out. So there is no chance that you did not know the event was happening. The GCIC schedule is out. So plan your spring and plan your fall with your kids and yourselves racing. The dates are out there. No excuses that you don't know the dates. Right. And I clearly race sites are not uh to take your money yet, but market dollars and then be ready to go. Yeah, save the date, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's a wedding. You put a wedding on the deal like a year out. Yeah, you got mountain bike races a long ways out. Let's save the date, put them in. I'm I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00:I see where it goes. See Nica grow. I'm glad I learned more about it because really I I knew very, very little before talking to you. So, I mean, for my own personal vanity situation, I'm excited to have this conversation. Um, and hopefully we can help spread the word and on the podcast and at our events and at anything that's happening, um, especially as you see kids out there riding a bike. Man, it's just you know, it's it's cool. It's growing.
SPEAKER_01:We're already we're in conversations with four new communities for teams. That's awesome. So we're hoping to do 185 to 200 kids at a race this year. Wow. Um massive explorer. That'd be cool. That would be big. That would be real to see a double in one year would be insane. Yeah, we're trust me, we're like looking at how do we bottle this. It's exploding, and we're like, oh boy, keep it rained in here. Yeah, right. So it is growing. I mean, we're seeing new teams. We're getting we've already had people step up. I had a team, uh parent call me yesterday. Like they heard about Nica after the season ended, and they're like, we want to go buy our kid a bike for Christmas. Uh how do we get them registered? And I'm like, whoa, pump the brakes. Yeah, let me get you involved, let me start here. This is when it's gonna reopen. Um, that's funny. So we're looking at new teams, we're looking at a bunch of new kids, we're looking at some new communities getting involved.
SPEAKER_00:So Ken wants to get involved. Oklahoma mtb.org. Yes, that side out, get all the information, reach out that direction. I know you're on Instagram. I do follow that site or that page, so you can reach out that way as well. Um, but ask around. There's there's places that you can find. Yeah, website's a good one. It's got emails. I'll have it's got links. Well, yeah. Um let's do a quick little wrap-up for you. Like your sale. All right. Fireway just to make it matter. Uh let's say uh favorite place you've ever ridden your mouth by man.
SPEAKER_01:Uh favorite place I've ridden. I got uh to ride Colorado Springs trails all throughout Colorado Springs riding around uh Garden of the Gods area is just absolutely beautiful. It's more hiking now, so I did that when there was more mountain bike trails in there a long time ago. It was a lot of fun. And then Steamboat, Colorado is probably my favorite place to go play.
SPEAKER_00:You uh you need to do the Apex if you like Colorado Springs. Did it a couple summers ago? It's a three-day stage race in Colorado Springs, it's pretty phenomenal. It's going on the calendar, it's a good one. It's a really, really and they run. It's kind of a grassroots event that has that's ran extremely well. Very highly recommend. Um, let's see. You have a dream bunk.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so I got to doing all the Nica stuff. Um, going to Trek headquarters, working that. I'm pretty big Trek loyalty fan right now. Uh they put me on a super caliber uh about a year ago now. And I love it. Um that's a good one. It's a good bike for me, not being super jumpy, not one up in the air. Little light on some travel in Turkey, but 95% of everything I ride. Yeah, it's really good. Um, love it. I've always been a fan of pivots and factor bikes for some reason. Like those two brands. If I could have one of those on the wall, um, I could not put another one on my wall in the garage. I saw your garage.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, not in your space.
SPEAKER_01:No, um, I may be looking. My wife might she would not be happy about that. Got it. I have to do an inventory check every so often. She's like, there's more bikes. No, those are my Nike bikes, or these are my that's a team bike, or that's a kid's bike, like I'm fixing for them, or you're putting a new wheel on. Like it's not staying here long term. It's not mine. It's not mine.
SPEAKER_00:You have a pocket list event you want to do at some point?
SPEAKER_01:Oh um full man. If I could like dream, have somebody go do it with, which might be a dream, like if my boy would stick with it all and keep riding to do a Cape Epic, like I think that's the ultimate dream. I don't know if I could even I don't think I could handle it. We could like fire that we can dream on it, I guess, and figure out like I need to take off work and train and prepare and all kinds of things. That would be like a dream bucket list. Uh Breck Epic's on my list to go do. That's a good one. Um, I will probably tackle that. I've got a going back in uh uh like 18. 18. I just did a three day. Okay, yeah. That's I might try the longer. I got two years to get the rest of the kids out of the house. Yeah, then game one. Then game on. Uh-huh. Um there's I'm trying stage races. I like the stage race style thing. Yeah, same. Um, if I go to, that would be one. I like the partner aspect and it goes back to that venture racing side of things. I think those are are fun to just get out and do. It's not so bury your head and redline your heart and just go. Yeah. Um, and so I enjoy I enjoy that side of things. There's a couple that way. Uh I'd probably Target. I know there's that new stage race in Arkansas. I signed up for that. Yeah. Um that was on graduation weekend. So I've got Dar graduating this year. So um not this. Well, I'm gonna have two graduating next year. So then you're you're close. Then it's out. Then you're then they're out. Okay. So uh what's your favorite beer? I'm gonna go. I've gotta stick with a genre stouts and porters. So I'm gonna go dark beer guy. I like a dark beer guy. Okay, most of the time, that's where I go. Uh a seasonal pumpkin ale. Okay. Pumpkin pumpkin spice ale. I would say that's my number one. Okay. Pumpkin spice ale, but the problem is I only get that for like five weeks out of the year. Um, porter stout would be my next go-to. And then if I'm outside of that, it's gotta be a really good like German Hefe Weissen. Like wheat beer. I do because I'm the one. If I'm gonna have one, I'm only gonna have one at most two, and I really want to enjoy it. Yeah. So I don't want anything else. I want one I'm gonna enjoy. I want it to go well with something I'm eating or just enjoy and taste. And it's more of a dessert for me. Gotcha. I think that's a perfect way to wrap up a mouth like uh episode. So I like it.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for coming. Let's go play bicycles.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've got a whole lot of trails to go explore today in Tulsa. Let's do it. All right, appreciate your time. Thanks, Dave. Sounds good, thank you.