Summer fun on two wheels

Growing mountain bike options for valley kids

Kids who love to mountain bike will have their pick of ways to explore the Gunnison Valley this summer. The Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team announced last week it will extend its programming into summer and absorb the resort’s existing Shredders program, and local mom and business owner Amy Nolan has been spearheading the creation of a new development team, Crested Butte Devo.
Add Gravity Groms to the picture—a family-owned mountain bike program about to begin its sixth year of operation in the valley—and it’s a good time to be a kid who loves mountain biking. A quick overview of each program suggests there will be something for every style of rider and every experience level.

CB Devo Team
Nolan, executive director for the Crested Butte Devo Team, says the inspiration for a local, non-competitive development team came from Durango. A few years ago when she and her family went camping in the area, they came across some of Durango Devo’s riders on the trails.
“It so cool and inspirational to be out on the trails and see these young kids having so much fun on bikes. Here, kids like to ride bikes when they’re young and then by the time they get to fifth or sixth grade, there’s no program that fosters non-competitive, safe, fun programming to keep these kids on their bikes,” Nolan said.
That means there are fewer kids—especially girls—to go out for the high school mountain bike team. In fact, last year Crested Butte came close to having a high school team that wasn’t recognized by the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) because they had trouble finding a girl to join the team. NICA requires that each team have at least one boy and one girl.
“When I heard that, I said that’s a problem. This is Crested Butte and if we can’t get one girl who really wants to ride on our mountain bike team instead of sitting on the bench for volleyball or soccer, then we need to look at the programming being offered,” Nolan said.
So with input from Durango Devo leaders—which has grown from a small group of seven or eight kids to a program that supports toddlers on strider bikes all the way to high school seniors—Nolan and her husband, Mike, set about forming a development team. While riders in the program very well may go on to compete in high school, the program itself will focus on fun and safety in addition to mountain bike skills.
The program will focus on building life skills, too. The curriculum will include things like orienteering, map reading, nutrition, strength training and bike maintenance. Many local experts are pitching in to help, including the Movement Center, the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association, and BetterRide coaches Andy and Heidi Shabo. Even the Forest Service staff approving the permit to operate in the Gunnison National Forest loved the vision. The agency awarded the team the maximum number of user days given to any first-year organization.
This summer, the Crested Butte Devo team will offer a nine-week program for 30 to 35 kids (that number may increase over time as the Forest Service allots more user days). And spots are filling up fast, with four kids even coming up from Gunnison to participate. Nolan says in addition to the focus on fun, being a nonprofit organization is important too.
“I whole heartedly believe the young riders in our valley deserve to have their own organization where 100 percent of all resources—not just financial, but the energy, the time, the enthusiasm to plan fundraisers and get community and industry support—exists for their benefit,” Nolan said.
 
Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team
Crested Butte Mountain Resort’s Mountain Sports Team already offers kids a development pipeline in alpine racing, snowboarding, free-ride, and tele-mark skiing. During winter, kids can continually develop their athletic skills and progress as athletes. Yet according to Nick Herrin, director of resort services, the original vision for the mountain sports team was to offer year-round, seasonal programming.
“The reason it’s called the Mountain Sports Team is that from the start [program founders] had a bigger vision for it,” Herrin said. A few years ago when CBMR piloted what he called a small, grassroots mountain bike program, only a few kids signed up. But the interest level has grown exponentially.
“[The original program] went away, but it wasn’t for lack of trying,” Herrin said, noting that things have changed considerably over the last couple of years. The resort took over Mountain Adventures, an outdoor program for kids originally run by the town of Mt. Crested Butte, and implemented a Shredders mountain bike program.
“The exciting thing we’ve seen in the last two years is huge number growth on our mountain bike programs. They have blown up,” perhaps most notably among girls, Herrin said. Last year, Mountain Adventures hosted a girls-only mountain bike program on Thursdays and saw as many as 20 girls sign up at a time. The timing seemed right to roll the Shredders program into the Mountain Sports Team, and develop both programs into a “development pipeline” that makes it possible for kids to learn and grow as mountain bikers whether they want to compete or not.
Herrin says Mountain Adventures will serve riders of all levels, and the Mountain Sports Team will serve kids who want to explore the competitive scene. Under the leadership of Woody Liendmeyr, Mountain Sports Team director, CBMR will incorporate ways for riders to compete, including races outside of the valley and opportunities with the local Pinnacle Mountain Bike Race Series sponsored by Griggs Orthopedics.
For his part, Liendmeyr sees the change as a great way to serve kids interested in competition. “We were not completely delivering to the higher end riders, but as the talent grows amongst local youth we would like to provide the best programming for their skills,” he said.
It’s the ability to serve all experience levels and give kids the chance to progress that also excites Herrin. “Mountain biking is big enough in the valley, and there is enough interest that we can offer this program this summer,” he said. “It’s really exciting.”

Gravity Groms
Gravity Groms founder Doug Hudson says the five-year-old program offers everything from day camps and groms sessions to private lessons and a factory team. They also offer activities like skate park sessions to keep things fresh for all-day programs—a must, Hudson says, when you’re working with young kids all day long. And that was part of the vision for the program: to offer mountain biking at rates and times that worked for working families.
And while Gravity Groms sometimes has a reputation for serving the kids who like to rip, Hudson says the program’s philosophy is all about being positive, being polite and being respectful. “We try to take a holistic approach to action sports,” he said, “That means to us, the sports themselves are secondary to teaching kids how to be great citizens and good people.”
To have fun at Gravity Groms, kids just need to love being outside and comfortable riding their bike up and over a street-side curb. From there, they’ll learn everything they need to know from coaches who not only ride, but also enter and podium at local and regional competitions.
Gravity Groms offers programs for kids between six and 16 years old, and the competitive program—which focuses on gravity or downhill riding compared to CBMR’s focus on cross country riding—serves kids nine to 16 years old. And when kids are ready for it, Hudson says he and his coaches encourage competition.
“We believe that competition, to an extent, is good for kids. In terms of teaching life-long skills and discipline, being accustomed to stepping up in front of a crowd and slapping on a racing number is important,” he said, adding “that kind of courage will serve them throughout their lives.”
And while Hudson is proud of the program’s great safety record, he’s most proud of the example Gravity Groms participants set for other kids. The factory team gets results—athletes perform consistently and beyond their age division and some of them go undefeated.
“Gravity Groms is working. These kids are pulling off amazing things, and yet the thing they’re most proud of is setting an example for other kids,” Hudson said.

Young mountain bikers and their parents can learn more about the Crested Butte Devo Team at www.crestedbuttedevo.com, Gravity Groms at www.gravitygroms.com and the Mountain Sports Team mountain bike program at www.skicb.com/mountainsportsteam (beginning March 15).