My daughter attends
Sir Francis Drake High School at ground zero for mountain biking, San Anselmo California. The school is two blocks from the place where Gary Fisher and I opened a business called
"MountainBikes" in 1979, where we assembled and sold bikes built on Tom Ritchey's frames.
Drake High has a
varsity mountain bike team, and I see the kids in their matching jerseys riding in groups, always with a
coach, on weekends at the local private singletrack course. The team won the
NorCal championship a couple of years ago.
Some kids from a video class interviewed me for a project on hiker v. biker conflicts, and during the conversation I learned something wonderful.
In a school with fewer than 1100 students, there are SIXTY members of the MTB team! It is by far the most popular varsity sport, even though the kids have to supply their own bikes and arrange transportation to the events.
If football players had to buy their own equipment and get to the games on their own, football would disappear.