How One Man Got More Than 300 Kids Mountain Biking
Rich Matthes sometimes can’t believe he created a mountain biking nonprofit from scratch, and that he once got 300 kids on mountain bikes in a single day. His wild success is in part explained by his infectious love of cycling, and his insistence that kids need to ride with other kids to get better—but building up Seacoast VeloKids required a lot of luck and even more labor.
Based in coastal New Hampshire, Seacoast VeloKids promotes youth mountain biking through a series of development programs and one-day events and races that make it easier for kids to get out and ride. There are quite a few barriers to putting—and keeping—children on mountain bikes, though, so we asked Matthes for his secrets. This is how one man got students from primary through high school out shredding mountain bikes on a regular basis.
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Bicycling: How did you end up combining cycling and youth development?
Matthes: I was never competitive [as a cyclist], but I was a big mountain biker. When I first moved to New Hampshire, I didn’t know anyone, so I would mountain bike by myself. I traveled for work 45 weeks of the year 20 years ago and brought my bike everywhere, too. But I used to say, if I’m never going to be a pro cyclist, maybe I could create a program that would create the next great racer. When I started hanging out with a couple of other cyclists, they told me to stop trying to create junior racers, just create kids who love bikes, and I realized that was a better idea. If kids want to become racers, let’s provide an avenue, but the best we can hope for is that they just love riding bikes.
So when did the idea to get kids riding turn into Seacoast VeloKids?
I remember it really well. I was in a hotel room, and I had taken my kids up to see the Polar Express Train. I saw this train full of kids going to see the imaginary North Pole, and I got back to the hotel and was lying in bed and thought, there should be a better way for kids to have fun as a group. A lot of my friends took their kids riding, but it’s hard to get kids riding with other kids these days for some reason. It’s hard to get them all together. I thought, if I could get 10 or 12 kids together and ride after school, that would be a win. I knew early on that I wanted to move it from one school to three schools, see clubs in high schools start.
“I used to say, if I’m never going to be a pro cyclist, maybe I could create a program that would create the next great racer.”
That seems like a pretty open-ended plan!
I had a friend tell me I needed a five-year vision, and I don’t know if I believed him or really cared, but I was like, ‘Sure, I’ll write one up.’ I just made stuff up! In February of 2013, I started getting pretty serious about it, approached some schools to ask if we could do it, and they said sure. Then, the week before Paris-Roubaix in March, I’d gotten the OK from the school—I was ready to send the sign-up forms, but I still hadn’t figured out how to get the bikes.
I went on a Wednesday morning ride with Dan out of Poppa Wheelies, and he asked what was holding me back; I said it was the bikes. He said they could give me the bikes on credit , and I said OK. He said if I didn’t end up raising the money, we could give them back. He did the same with helmets and lent me the shop van. So the week before the program started, I took the van and went out with a rubber mallet and a ton of wooden stakes that I borrowed from Orchard Cross, with tape from Home Depot, and hammered out a little course.
Did you expect the program to be a success?
I didn’t think anyone would show up; I was just doing it on credit. But 14 kids showed up and it was a great success. I had friends help me with coaching, and I made sure to only let third- through fifth-graders in, because my daughter was in second grade and I thought I’d test it on kids I didn’t know!
And at the end of the spring season, were you 100-percent committed or were you terrified?
After six weeks, people were asking if I was going to run fall programs or run it again the next year. I said I was taking the summer off to think about it, but I knew I wanted to do it again and I was prepared to do it again. I started reaching out to other schools in the fall.
Your biggest triumph might be that first Take Your Kid Mountain Biking day. How did you get 140 kids mountain biking in one day, exactly?
I read about IMBA’s Take Your Kid Mountain Biking Day in 2013. I thought it sounded like a great event, and three weeks before the day, I went to my local group to see if they wanted to help organize an event. So there were five or six of us and we figured, ‘What could go wrong?’
A woman from Hawthorne Publishing had a kid in our program earlier in the spring and asked if we would like 100 books to give away; every local bike shop gave us water bottles to give away; but we only had 32 kids registered for the event. I thought that was fine: five of us, 32 kids, how hard could it be? I’d been asking pro racer Ted King for advice, and he said he’d come to the event and he tweeted about it a few days before the event. So when we showed up on Saturday, there were 140 kids instead of 32.
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We were overwhelmed. It was an amazing day. It couldn’t have been more magical. And a bunch of people came to me to offer to help with SeaCoast Velo. That was the day we went from being one person to starting a 10-person board. And it just went from there.
The next spring, we were in three elementary schools; the following fall, we were in a middle school; and now, I have calls with high schools—I’m the coach of the Portsmouth High School team. We’ll have programs in five or six new towns next spring, we run big kids races, and we still do Take Your Kid Mountain Biking Day, but we do it in May to get kids excited for riding in the summer.
Related: The Best Summer Cycling Camps for Kids
How do you get kids interested in joining the program in the first place—apart from promises of meeting pro racers?
When you get a kid on a bike, they can’t help but smile. I think that’s universally true: Any kid on a bike is smiling. We did all of our programs at schools, so every day after school, kids leaving saw those 12 kids who committed to the program getting on shiny new mountain bikes, and having fun going over bridges and teeter totters and rock gardens. By the next year, we had 50 kids who wanted to do the program. When kids see other kids riding, they want to ride. Get five kids riding and you’ll double the number if other kids can see them riding.
“When kids see other kids riding, they want to ride.”
Why don’t more kids ride?
Most kids learn to mountain bike with parents, and that’s not as much fun. First of all, how can a kid keep up with a parent? And what parent can appreciate how hard mountain biking is for smaller kids? But when kids just get to ride with kids, all their fears are gone and it’s a much more welcoming thing.
After all of the bike skills coaching you’ve done, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
You don’t have to teach a kid to have fun on the bike. The minute you think that’s what you’re going to try to do, you’re in trouble. They need to figure it out for themselves—they’ll figure it out. Just step back and let them ride.
What’s your best tip for others who want to get kids riding, or start programs?
Think big, start small, keep it simple. I had a big dream, but I wanted to start with one small after-school program for one spring and figure it out from there.
Find out more at www.seacoastvelokids.org
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