This past fall at the final race of the VAHS series at Woodberry Forest up in Madison, something like 300 kids showed up to race mountain bikes. It was a jaw-dropping volume of shredding, bigger than almost every other MTB race in Virginia in 2017, all except for the SM100.
Even 10 years ago, the idea that 300 high schoolers (and middle schoolers, actually) would show up to a mountain bike race would have been pretty far-fetched...unless you were James Gist.
A little of the history of youth mountain bike racing here in Virginia can be found below, and the big man on the Northern Fringe, Nolan himself, sent me an explanation of how James' work back in 2007 has evolved into the thriving race scene we have today.
From Nolan:
James was pretty instrumental in helping Tony and I get the blue ridge triple threat off the ground. As far as I know (and I am sure someone will correct me) it was the first high school race series in virginia. Started in 2008 ran for two or three years. In my humble opinion it paved the way for the current junior MTB scene. If memory serves me correctly James was the CAMBC president at the time, and he and Fenton showed Tony and me how to do stuff. The series was BRS, O-Hill and Walnut.
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2007, Blue Ridge School  |
Social Progress. The aging of the human body. The passage of time. Every lesson in history like this tends to give me pause.
This one gives me hope too. For every school shooting out there, which there seems to be an awful lot of right now, there's a guy like Nolan, or James, or Fenton working to bring bikes into kids' lives in a way that might help them learn to peacefully navigate this bizarre, dangerous new world.
Which is the only world we have to offer them.
Shred on, kids.
Rubber down. Heads up, up, up.
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