by Ian

Left to right: Youth program participants Ian Marsh, Jonathon Mejia, Edgar Castillo, Liam Quigley, Joe Lawler and Atila

Find out about the 2007 Program
The New York Cycle Club is launching a new Youth Program. If you know a young person (age 16-22) who wants to become a stronger biker but wouldn't otherwise be able to train, NYCC is forming a recreational youth bicycling program. Students in the 10 week spring training and fitness program will learn to bike safely and confidently throughout the NYC metro area. You will improve your cycling fitness and bike handling skills.
NYCC will provide helmets and gear and a new road bike to participating youth. Youth who complete the program will keep their bikes!
The Spring 2006 Youth Program is already underway. See some photos on line, and check back soon for some student SIG stories.
View our photo album
If you have questions, contact NYCC directly for more information: youthprograms@nycc.org To find out about other youth opportunities through Recycle-A-Bicycle, subscribe to our newsletter!
The New York Cycle Club's fist annual Youth Program wound to a close in early May, as the NYCC held its "graduation" ride for the SIG training program (SIG stands for Special Interest Group, all questions regarding the bizare name should be sent to the NYCC). The SIG training program is designed to improve strength, endurance and group riding skills for devoted cyclists across the city. Starting in early March, each Saturday for 10 weeks groups of about 8-13 cyclists ride to various places in Westchester, Long Island and New Jersey. The groups are divided alphabetically by skill. The A-SIG holds the longest and fastest rides, the B-SIG and C-SIG's rides are progressively slower and shorter. Each letter group is subdivided into several groups differentiated by a number which indicates the average cruising speed of the group, i.e. a B-16 group would average 16mph on flat land. Each group includes several ride leaders, who are experienced cyclists able to teach pre-ride classes on anything from hill climbing tecniques to riding in traffic. One of the most useful skills taught in the SIG is pacelining, or drafting in which cyclists ride single or double file while riding close together in order to minimize wind resistance. According to the SIG manual, it can increase your efficiency by as much as 35%! As Youth Group member Joe Lawler, 20 of Recycle-a-Bicycle says, "The more people there are the faster and longer you can ride, that's one of the main advantages of the SIG."

Another advantage is riding with other people who are just as devoted to cycling as you are. They can offer mechanical support in the event of an accident, and are friendly to boot. "I was a little intimidated at first but I definetly felt accomidated by my group," said Youth Group member Liam Quigley, 15. "I was encouraged to go faster by My group leaders Christian and Ivy who were especially helpful. On one ride there was a minor accident, and two people went down. But Christian and Ivy helped true my wheels and everything worked out." While the SIG training program can be great way to get in better shape and increase your riding skills with other friendly riders, the vast majority of the NYCC's membership are older professionals. "I'm 41 and sometimes I'm the youngest person on a ride," says Rich Conroy, the manager of bicycle eduation for Bike New York and an organizer of the Youth Program. "We wanted to get some young people with different faces involved with cycling, and promote cycling in general." Lynn Barou, Youth Program organizer and mentor agrees. "We would like to attract youth to the Club, but it's equally important to us to attract youth to the sport." According to Rich, the idea for a youth group origanally came from NYCC member Carol Wood while riding Transportation Alternatives' Tour de Bronx in 2005. She saw so many enthusiastic young people riding, she thought it was unfortunate that more youth weren't involved with the Club. The idea was suggested to the outgoing director who made a call for volunteers to form a youth program. Several members responded and a Youth Program was formed. The members involved with the youth program decided to create an added inticement of a Fuji Newest 3.0 road bike, along with several jerseys, bike shorts and tights, Cliff Bars and Goo (a strange energy solution, the name being fairly descriptive of the actual product), a helment, tubes, tire levers, a pump, water bottles and a water bottle cage. In short, they gave away a lot of free crap. "In the Cycle Club there was a discussion on how to make cycling more accesable to young and economically disadvantaged people. We thought that since many people interested in cycling don't have bikes, let alone cycling clothes and gear, it would be appropriate to provide a bike and accessories to participants in the program. The question then arose of how to keep the youth coming back after the give aways, so it was decided that the participants of the Youth Program, in order to keep the bike, would have to fufill the same requirements as all the other participants in the SIG." In order to graduate, participants in the SIG, or "SIGlets" in NYCC slang, must attend and complete at least eight of the 10 rides in the SIG. Not so hard right? As a teenager, I will assure you that arriving at Central Park at eight or nine on a Saturday morning is more difficult than it seems, but the members of the Youth Group managed to perservere and make it there each Saturday.

At the end of the SIG, both sides seem to be satisfied. "I've gotten much faster since I started the SIG," said Edgar Castillo, 17 of Recycle-a-Bicycle. "It used to take me an hour to get to work in DUMBO from my house on 125th Street. Now it takes me like, half an hour." "I'm definetly Eating better than I used to. I eat healthier and a lot more. Man, I eat so much now," Said Joe Lawler. "I'm improving my strength and endurace also. It's nice to be able to ride with a group of strong riders who go about as fast as you do. I want to be the best I can be so I can be more like Jared, our shop manager." Jared Bunde is a semi-professional bike racer. "I would definetly reccomend the SIG," said Youth Group member Liam Quigley. "But you can't think that you're just going out for a little excercise on a Saturday. You have to be serious about cycling, it's a challenging program." Rich Conroy agrees that the Program has gone well. "The Club is very happy how the Youth Program has turned out. Everyone's done well, no one's dropped out. Even at the first meeting in Lynn Barou's office I was very impressed by what a nice group of kids we had, everyone has their own unique and admirable qualities."

Lynn Barou was satisfied with the program this year but would like to see it expand in years to come. "The Youth Group has five fabulous kids who each bring their own personality and enthusiasm to cycling, but this year's Program was only a pilot program. Next year the club would like to give more kids the oppurtunity to participate in the Youth Program, and we'll have to see what those kids are willing to do, and what experiance they have. This year we had kids who lived and breathed cycling as much as we did, if not more. We'd like to give kids with only rudimentary cycling experiance an oppurtunity to challenge themselves and get better at cycling." Interested youth can visit the NYCC website, http://nycc.org Subscribe to our newsletter for advance notice on NYCC's youth program next year.