Kelly Myers
Greetings OBRA Land!
I am a science teacher at Tualatin High School, and for the past six months I have been diligently working on the development of a cycling team at the high school level. Fortunately, I have been receiving outstanding guidance and support from the Oregon Bicycle Racing Association (OBRA) and the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA), and networking with other motivated OBRA members already working at the high school level.
At this time, the long-term ���goal��� for both myself, (in alignment with OBRA and NICA���s goals), is to provide a well-defined race season for Tualatin High���s student athletes and to promote the formation of MTB/cycling teams at other public and private high schools. These teams will be focused heavily on fitness, fun, responsibility and skills, combined with the competitive aspects of mountain biking for those who wish to participate.
Our Tualatin High School MTB team has been meeting regularly to train and set goals for future competition and growth. Which brings me to our team���s immediate goal���to fundraise and gain support to facilitate travel to Folsom Lake, CA to participate in a NorCal MTB League race on March 19th of this year. We are choosing this NorCal League venue to attend because of the NorCal���s League size and momentum in the NICA world���close to 1000 student riders attend annually.
This and the fact that a long-weekend adventure full of mountain biking spirit will hopefully only help to light the fire of cycling is a handful of kids who are just beginning their exposure to the finest sport of the planet. We want to take whatever momentum gained from the NorCal trip, bring it back up here to Oregon, and show them how it is really done���think about a 1000 high school kids at a MTB race!
If anyone has interest in helping build this type of community here in Oregon please contact me offline���in particular the Beaverton, Tigard and Tualatin areas. Our team is looking for any support we can get. I���m sure many share my complaint that cycling is expensive, thus funding for the team is of concern, but it is by no means the only hub-grease our team needs to keep moving forward! We would greatly appreciate: free bikes or equipment for a tax write-off, any kind of ���kit��� support, mechanic classes in the future, venues to ride, and most importantly, people recruiting students at other high schools who might want to get involved. One caveat I face doing this at the high school level is that it has to be made ���accessible��� to ALL interested and qualified students��� participation cannot and should not be determined by socioeconomic status.
Feel free to check out a couple of links to the NorCal Laegue and NICA.
http://www.norcalmtb.org/
http://www.nationalmtb.org/
If you made it all the way through this windy email, much appreciated!
Best,
K. Myers