The National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) is coming to Australia, hosting seven test events across the ACT, Victoria and New South Wales this summer.
What is NICA, you ask? It’s the high school mountain bike program that played a role in developing riders like Kate Courtney, Christopher Blevins, Haley Batten, Hannah Otto, Gwen Gibson and Riley Amos — maybe you’ve heard of them?
We caught up with Mark Eedle and Eddie Freyer, who are bringing the program to Australia, to see what their plans are and what NICA Australia is all about.
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What is NICA?
NICA debuted in the US in 2009 in California as a mountain bike racing league. Since then it has expanded across 32 states — and inspired some offshoot school programs in places like Colorado, Washington and Georgia.
But as Freyer, who runs the Idaho league and launched leagues in two states while also developing a strategic framework for NICA, explains, it’s about more than just racing.
“We consider ourselves a youth development organisation. We happen to use the mountain bike as a vehicle to teach some really valuable life lessons and character development, but our goal is to create lifelong cyclists and help these kids fall in love with the sport of cycling,” says Freyer.
NICA was started by Matt Fritzinger, a science teacher in Berkeley, California, who was a racer himself. In the early days, it was a program specifically designed to create an opportunity for kids to race. But through building a curriculum and a coaching licensing program, they had also built-in things like teaching leave-no-trace principles, respecting others, dig days and core values.
“We have shifted our priority from the focus being on racing, to focusing on youth development, getting kids on bikes and encouraging them to be lifelong cyclists. And the byproduct from that is there are some of these elite racers coming out of our program that get introduced to cycling through NICA and then fall in love with it from a competitive racing aspect,” says Fryer.
Who is bringing NICA to Australia?
We’ve introduced to you to Freyer who lives in Idaho and comes from the NICA side. Mark Eedle is the man on the ground here in Australia.
For those plugged into the bike industry, Eedle is the Trek Bicycle Asia Pacific Advocacy and Engagement Manager. Trek is a big supporter of NICA — one of the brand’s pillars is to get more people on bikes — however, Eedle stressed that this isn’t NICA presented by Trek Bicycles.
“NICA is coming to Australia; we (Trek) are merely helping them as a resource, and the program will stand on its own two legs,” says Eedle.
Who is NICA for?
NICA is targeted at high school-aged kids (12-17-year-olds). While some of what they are doing is what many local mountain bike clubs already have in their activities, Freyer and Eedle see what they’re trying to achieve as a stepping stone into the clubs.
“When we launched in the US, the families that were in existing mountain bike clubs and the families that already rode were the low-hanging fruit. Where NICA comes in is giving kids who aren’t already plugged in, an avenue into mountain biking,” says Freyer.
“In the US, it’s actually generating a situation where some of the races the kids go on to afterwards are having to increase their capacity. So when we’re talking about creating cyclists and becoming a feeder for events and organisations going forward, NICA is kind of a runway for clubs and other events,” says Eedle.
While most of the teams are run through schools, communities can also form teams. Freyer tells Flow that in the US, about 50% of the teams are from schools, and the other half are what they would consider ‘composite teams’, which encompass kids from multiple different schools.
What if you’re not into racing?
While what is often talked about with NICA is the racing — heck, we named five of the best racers to come out of the program from the jump — a big part of the program is focused on anything but racing.
“We have a specific coaching curriculum for adventure rides and things that aren’t competition-focused at all,” says Freyer.
In fact, Fryer explains that several teams will split their practices, giving the kids the option to focus on the competitive aspect of riding, or the elements of mountain biking that aren’t based around intervals and race times.
“We will have practices filled with kids who want to get fast and focus their training programs around that. Then, the other aspects of the teams are for kids to focus on the adventure — things like reading maps or learning how to bike pack. It’s more about those skills that they could use to just go out and ride their bikes for fun,” says Freyer.
While there is no pressure for the kids to compete, even with an adventure curriculum, Freyer tells Flow about 75% of the kids in the program will try at least one race during their season.
“There are no trials and there is no bench,” Eedle continues. “There is an element of NICA that works for everyone. With the youth development focus, if the kids come out of their time at NICA with a joy of riding bikes and want to keep riding — it’s been a massive success.”
The GRIT Program
Improving female participation in mountain biking is an ongoing conversation and something our sport has traditionally struggled with. Within the NICA program, it runs GRiT “Girls Riding Together.”
“GRiT is our initiative to attract, recruit, and retain female participation in our sport. We’ll have a female-led group ride as part of the Try-It-Out and things like that,” says Freyer. “Across the US, female participation rates hover at about 20% — we see that industry-wide. But then specific to NICA across the country, it’s 22-23%,” says Freyer.
In the Idaho league that Freyer runs, he tells Flow they have a 30% female participation rate. NICA is also an organisation where the C-Suite is dominated by women, and this push to get more girls to ride bikes will be a large part of NICA’s launch in Australia.
How does the coaching program work?
What is planned to run this summer around Australia is a pilot program, and the coaching program won’t be fully online just yet. However, NICA Australia is planning to implement the same program used in the USA across Australia.
Freyer explained that NICA has its own coaching licensing program based on the industry standards coming from PIMPA and similar organisations. They’ve also had people like Lee McCormack who have played a role in developing the curriculum to teach these kids the basic riding skills needed to be safe, and then building on that to ride fast — if that’s what they want to get out of riding.
“We have three levels of licensing a coach can get. The first one is really basic, here in the States — it may be a little different down there — it’s a background check, some basic concussion (care and identification) training, risk management and NICA philosophy training they can do online,” Freyer says.
He goes on to explain that the next level comes with some in-person skills training run by a certified coach, who NICA calls OTB 101 instructors.
The third and final level of coach licensing is more focused on the administrative side of things, and Freyer tells Flow it’s for folks who’d like to be a team director or head coach. This focuses on managing a team, balancing the books, sponsorships, etc.
“We’ve developed this curriculum for the last 20+ years, and we’ve refined it. We have proven its success in working in the US. In my league alone (in Idaho), I’ve got 800 volunteer coaches that have been licensed through the program this year,” he says.
What about Rocky Trail Academy? And where is AusCycling in all of this?
If you’re unfamiliar with Rocky Trail Academy, it’s a massive mountain bike events program designed for school kids that is run in tandem with the uber-popular Superflow events. These are run across Queensland, Victoria, NSW and the ACT and have grown to the point Rocky Trail struggles to find an open weekend during the school year to run the events.
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NICA and Rocky Trail Academy are in a similar space. Eedle says these programs will complement one another, not only in that one is focused on XC and the other is gravity, but also in that the calendars won’t overlap.
We asked if there would be any collaboration between these two organisations, and while Eedle stressed that NICA would operate independently, they’ve already spoken about possibly working together.
“When I spoke to Martin and Juliane — I don’t want to put words in their mouths — but they were certainly enthusiastic because they could see the bigger picture and what NICA does and the overall goal,” says Eedle
“Rocky Trail has amazing experience and insights, and there may be an opportunity where we can draw on some of their skills and expertise and some of their logistics, on a much more practical level, to see if there are any benefits or things we can learn from them. NICA will operate independently, but we’ve already opened a dialogue to see if there are some resources or some logistics we can work on together,” says Eedle.
Of course, then there is AusCycling. In all fairness, this is very much the space that AusCycling should be occupying. As the sport’s governing body, it should be leading the charge to get more kids on bikes and take point on youth development and racing programs like this.
Eedle tells us he’s only just started conversations with AusCycling to gain its support — we can’t see any reason for them not to jump on board.
In the absence of the governing body trying to bring programs like NICA and Rocky Trail Academy, we’re happy to see others in the riding community picking up the slack to sow the seeds of bikes at the grassroots level.
How do the events work?
When we caught up with Freyer, he was in the process of setting up the penultimate race of the 2024 Idaho series, and between the riders, coaches, and their families, they are expecting about 2,500 people to show up — for a kids mountain bike event!
“With the way our events are structured, we set up for camping and this entire weekend event. One of the parents came up to me earlier this season and said, ‘You know, this is like a G-rated version of Burning Man with just a bunch of kids on bikes.’ It’s just a big festival atmosphere,” says Freyer.
For this pilot program, there will be six Try-it-out events:
- Mt Stromlo, Canberra – Saturday 30 November 2024
- Majura Pines, Canberra – Saturday 7 December 2024
- Mystic Mountain, Bright – Friday 3 January 2025
- Falls Creek – Sunday 5 January 2025
- Beechworth – Saturday 11 January 2025
- Wylde, Sydney – Saturday 18 January 2025
- Narooma – Saturday 8 February 2025
This all culminates in one final NICA Race at Stromlo in February. The course will be set and open for riders to preview on 21 February, and the race will run the following day.
Freyer explained the idea for the Try-It-Outs will be to create an experience to see what NICA entails or even just ride mountain bikes. They’ll have a trailer of loner bikes kids can check out at each stop and will be hosting guided rides.
“We want to give people an experience whether on their own bike or if they’re brand new to the sport. We’ll have volunteer coaches out there to lead the rides. We’ll have an adventure course marked out with the signs you’d typically see at our events so they can get a feel for what a NICA event is like,” says Freyer.
“Then we’ll give them an opportunity to close out their session, ask some questions and hopefully get involved. Our goal is to generate participation for the final event at the end of February and get as many people as possible to Stromlo. Because when they come and see a full-blown, NICA-produced race event, that’s when people get hooked,” he continues.
How can you get involved?
Registrations for the first NICA event will open in mid-October, with the first Try-It-Out at Stromlo at the end of November.
For more information, head over to the NICA Australia website.
Photos: Aaron Puttcamp / National Interscholastic Cycling Association Pennsylvania, Deb Hage / National Interscholastic Cycling Association North Carolina, – Katie Sox / National Interscholastic Cycling Association Oregon, Outer Image Collective / Rocky Trail Entertainment, Flow MTB
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