Last Thursday marked the final week of the kids' mountain biking program in Thompson, CT. Last year I had strung together some kids' rides with friends, but thought I'd try to do something more formal this year. Renee Waldron from Thompson Rec happily obliged.
We did an eight week program at the West Thompson Dam, although two of those weeks were rained out. Another one of my Wednesday night crew, Dave Violette, was kind enough to assist with the program. It would have been impossible without another volunteer. Big props to Dave for coming through, especially when he didn't even have a kid in the program. Thanks Dave!
The program had ten kids signed up, including my son Harry. All were between nine and 12 and they were equally split between boys and girls. Most of the kids were pretty consistent in their attendance, although summer vacations and baseball playoffs definitely took their toll.
We had a great summer of rides. Starting with just a little single track and rides of less than 2.5 miles to the last ride we did which was almost all single track and was nearly five miles. Several of the kids showed significant growth in skills and endurance. By the end a few of the kids were approaching some of the tougher obstacles with an eye on getting over them rather than with an eye of figuring out where they should get off their bikes.
The penultimate week we had Ben Stone show up from Bicycle Concepts in Putnam to give the kids a quick bike clinic. Super awesome. Thanks Ben!
The Thompson Villager also showed up that week and did an awesome write up that appeared on page A-9 in last weeks' paper.
The program was only $10 per child and all received a water bottle and a t-shirt. The kids really seemed to like it. In the end we rode a total of 19.89 miles together.
Harry talked to a ton of kids at camp today that had read the article in the paper. I think he liked that quite a bit. Hoping to do the program again next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment