Where Slipstream riders came from
Posted on 12. Feb, 2009 in Bike Racing
I had lunch a while back with Matt Fritzinger, founder of the NorCal High School Mountain Bike League. What Matt originally started a student mountain biking club when he was teaching at Berkeley High is now probably the biggest juniors cycling program in the country, with over 40 teams, 4 full-time employees, and a new league starting up in Southern California for 2009.
Matt and I were talking about what he tells people who ask him about starting a road racing league. The question comes up all the time and his response is that the NorCal League will always stick to mountain biking because it’s safer, more inclusive, and more fun.
I was thinking thinking about that at last night’s event at Clif Bar HQ with MASH and Garmin-Slipstream. Of the 8 riders on the team, all but Christian Vandevelde and Svein Tuft (also the two oldest riders on the team) said that they got into road cycling through mountain biking as kids. I think Steve Cozza actually raced in the NorCal League.
When I talked to Matt, what really struck me about his opinion on road cycling vs. mountain biking for juniors is that he was speaking as an educator first and a cyclist second. By educator, I’m talking about teaching young people about life, not bike racing. That’s not a perspective that you come across very much in cycling but the stories from the Slipstream riders seem to prove that Matt’s the right approach.
The NorCal League will have four benefit screenings of Road To Roubaix during the Tour of California, details are here.
Cheers to that. It was always my assumption that most younger road riders came from mountain biking until a group ride with the cycling club in college. One of the other riders came up next to me, took a look at the old jersey I was wearing and asked, as diplomatically as possible, “What exactly is Rock Shox?”