Ostuni

We are getting a cycling club organized at the local high school...

We will use a blog to communicate, keep schedules, documents, etc.

Some of the kids are beginners, and am looking for teaching/training materials I can start posting on our blog... Looking for free, web-based stuff that will, for example, give the kids a primer on bike mechanics, road safety, and racing for beginners...

Also want to put together a web course on cycling safety on our LMS...

Will of course ask the internet, ParkTool.com, etc., but if anyone here would like to refer me to some quality resources that won't these kids a headache I'd be glad to hear about them...

Cheers

BackRoadsBiker

How does one go about starting a highschool bike team? I'm in HS and have always to have one.

EivlEvo

I think this site is a good source of info. Well... as good as any.

Your best bet is to simply get out and get experience. This is the reason for Cat 5 racing. We tell all of our rookies all that we know, and we show them all that we can out on training rides, using tons of different "sterile" examples... ie. "Ok, if you're here and this guy does this, what are your thoughts?" Stuff like that. Reason being, you could read every tactical bit of warfare on the topic but until you see it and know how you specifically will handle it its all different.

With a high school team much like our college team, riders will change every year. What worked well as a strategy one year might not work at all the next.

Focus on teaching the basics. Hold handling clinics, crit training "races", TT positioning trainer rides, echelon work, paceline work. Start by meeting in a classroom and say, ok... we're going to TRY and work on these moves today. draw out a PLAN on the whiteboard and show everyone how the rotations SHOULD look and work. If a rider has questions at any point during the ride, pace off a few mph's and answer the question so that the group can see what the effects are.

We like to go out for about a 30 min warmup and a 60 minute practice in formations, then we'll pause and just sort of sit up. Ask questions and if no one has questions we start throwing wrenches into the system to see how they handle it (to make them ask questions). Theres usually about a 40 min demonstration period there to answer the questions and then we roll on back.

Ostuni

Find a member of the faculty willing to sponsor.

Get your student activities person to approve the club and assist with the necessary matters regarding liability, physicals, etc.

Recruit riders.

Psimet2001 

I've actually always wanted to start one. I'll probably wait until my son is a little older though.

Link to Seldon's site <of course>. Honestly between that, Park, and here you pretty much have the best resources on the web.

There was a great thread out here about a guy who starting a team at a high school he worked at. Wish I could dig it up.

Maybe check with beef to see how his high school club venture is going.

Ostuni

Here's a start: Spartanburg Youth Cycling Club Blog

HigherGround

How long can it be until "HTFU", "freds", and "dialing it up to 400 watts" become part of the high school slang?

BackRoadsBiker

This would be very difficult at my school. No one that I know of (students or teachers) ever ride a bike except to 7-11 to buy beer after school. Also our athletic director weighs over 300 lbs and doesn't care about anything but football. And I have been forbidden to ride my bike to school. Not a very supportave invironment.

Treefox

Though it won't be specifically geared towards road racing, Slowtwitch has lots of good little tutorials on their site. I imagine with a high school group you'd want to be starting people out on time trialing anyhow.

This recent one on decending, I thought, was pretty good.

Treefox

And actually, amongst all the crap, there've been some great discussions of race tactics in the Road Racing forum here.

maddog17

what about US Cycling? they must have some links to info or coaches in your area that could help you out. what about trying to reach out to local clubs? maybe some of their members can help out.