Minneapolis is AMAZING… don’t tell anyone
Mum, I met a guy on the internet and I’m flying across the States to Minnesota to stay with him for a week. I get it, that sounds slightly insane/dangerous… but if you’ve been in the mountain bike world for a while (a while=20+ years), and have a real good spidey sense (spidey sense=a mum for a police officer that made sure you were always on high alert), then this doesn’t seem that insane at all. In fact, it is totally normal in my world.
When Bruce picked me up from the airport (in a van, ha!) and opened the door with a can of cold sparkling water (unopened of course), I knew I was in the right place. His contagious smile and 4 month old baby as a copilot also helped. We were straight into the history of the area and the acknowledgement of massive generational trauma (like most places in the States) due to colonisation. His depth of knowledge is only something you can get when you have spent a lot of time (aka 30+ years) and care an awful lot about the people who have and do reside there.
Bruce is the mastermind behind the National Center for Youth Development… although he would hate that I even label him as that. Essentially, he’s a human that cares deeply about the power of bikes as a catalyst for change, specifically with young people. To hear more about Bruce’s check out the super entertaining The Stable Cyclist podcast where Bruce may or may not take his shirt off.
Now Bruce would not (and could not) be Bruce without Lisa. She is a force (and would have to be to put up with Bruce, ha!), who runs her own physio gig, started a women’s ride group, and now runs a mountain bike skills coaching company. Lisa and her business partner/friend Leigh set up Stöke MTB a few years back. Their entire mission is to empower others to feel the joy of mountain biking. Something I can totally relate to with WORD and Joyride…. we spent many hours with cups of tea chatting structure, coaching styles, and ideal bike set ups for infants.
Bruce and Torsten on tour! The best way to see a city is always by bike… 30 minutes after landing in Minneapolis we were out the door…
The music scene, the bike lanes, the ice cream shops, the underground tunnels, the river… this place is not what I expected…
To really get a feel for NCYD, I was invited to join the weekly ride on some local trails… while there aren’t many downhills, they make up for it with their speed! We whipped around this neat 10km trail system, giggling and puffing the whole way round.
Izzy, a key member to the NCYD Youth Board makes this tricky rock section look easy. Her insights into how the Youth Board run were eye opening… these elected young people play a key role in keeping the organisation youth focus. The Board meet with them every couple of months and ‘spot’ check to make sure what the Board has set out to do meets the needs of young people.
The joys of staying with people are that you get plenty of time to chat. I find that it’s the early morning gym sessions (yes, we were up at 5.30am to go lift weights), the impromptu pasta saland lunches, and the late night ice creams are all where the magic happens. No rushing for a 1 hour chat… just time to let things flow organically. We went deep on effective youth coaching, race focused vs ride focused (a theme that seems to be in all my discussions), systems of Instructor training, and how to make the most excellent 'podium cakes’ (the secret is all in the base, it must be Krusteaz, it must).
Proof that I’m working above. And that I’m ‘working’ below…
It was a total fangirl moment when I met Jillian, the owner of A Bar of Their Own, a newly opened sports bar in Minneapolis that plays all women’s sport, all the time. Yep, just women’s sport on the tv (all 20 of them). Good food, good people, goodness it’s been a long time coming. Gina, the interim Executive Director of NCYD (while Bruce is on parental leave), kindly joined me for a midday pub visit. When we walked into this inclusive sports bar environment, I was literally overwhelmed (ie. tears) with a feeling of ‘if you can see it, you can be it’. While I am not advocating for always having women over here and men over here, I do advocate for inclusion and equality… so show me (and the world!) more women’s sport in the media. Currently just over 20% of sports media in NZ is dedicated to featuring women. So having a place like A Bar of Their Own shows us what’s possible. And I can tell you that they are killing it…packed almost every night with a huge variety of
Now over to more good humans, one of Bruce’s favourite people… Martha Flynn. She is the spunky human dedicated to helping more girls ride bikes. Martha is the Regional Coordinator of the Little Bellas. This organisation is HUGE! We’re talking 60 programmes spread across the states. They oooze fun… colour rides, big smiles, and decorated bikes. I’ve gotta say that the States (and specifically Little Bellas) absolutely rocks at ‘gamifying’ bike skills. Maybe it’s something around the celebratory nature of Americans, or maybe it’s just people like Martha who ensure that everything they do is done with fun. More of this please!
Because Martha and I couldn’t take a ‘normal’ photo…
We’re now into the weekend and we hit the road for a local XC race over in Wisconsin. I do love that about the States… there is never a lack of options when it comes to mountain bike events. Each weekend you have your choice of 3-5 races all within a 5 hour drive. I wonder what our racing culture would be like in NZ if we had those kind of options… compared to the 3 races a year that are specifically for young people.
Check out this set up?!
A fun day out on the trails and quite possibly the best end of race snack I have ever seen….
Welp, that’s a first for me…. Look out for the next Bike-a-Palooza finish line snacks!
I love the post race evening… chats about the race, stuffing food into faces, ideas for what’s next. It was the perfect time for a movie-OnWORD! For those of you in the know, you may have seen this at the Big Bike Film Night over the past few months. For everyone else, it’s the story of 10 original WORD young people bikepacking 900km from Wellington to Wanaka. These 17-22 year olds designed and organised the entire 10 day trip in late 2022 and I was lucky enough to get to join them. And here we were in a cabin in Wisconsin watching this film with a group of incredible young women. Their Mentor, inspiration, and cheerleader is Rachel, an ex semi pro soccer player who realised there was more fun to be had off a field. She quickly fell in love with riding bikes (anywhere and everywhere, and pretty darn quick too!) and these young people couldn’t be more stoked about that fact.
What happened next was the magic….2 hours after the film was finished, they had planned their first 4 day bike packing trip to take place in September. I’d like to say I was surprised by that late night trip planning, but really I’m not. If you can see it, you can be it….
And so wraps up a week in Bruce’s world. A world that lives far beyond the youth of NCYD. In a town that he (and all the other people I met) would like you to not know is as amazing as it is….
There are just some humans you meet and you feel like you must have known them from a previous life… I think it’s totally ironic that the photo above is the only one of the 5 of us I took all week, under a ‘finish’ line… when really, meeting these humans feels like it’s just the start…
