Last week a handy crew at Outride anchor donor Specialized’s Salt Lake City warehouse pulled together the bike build for Glendale Middle School. The volunteer team built up 50 Specialized bikes for Glendale’s Riding for Focus students — one of the 44 new schools awarded a grant this past May.

Andrew Love, Brand Security, Investigations & Global Enforcement for Specialized, coordinated the task and details. The bikes were built up and delivered on the same day. The volunteer team was comprised of Specialized employees, Glendale teachers, and Andrew Love and his family. It was truly a gift from Andrew that made it all possible.

Kudos to the Glendale Middle School Bike Build Team--Lucas Tucker, Dane Hess, and Cassie Bell (also works at Ogden Bike Collective). The Specialized Team, along with Andrew and his wife Jessica, included Grant Gittus, Jake Morse, Michael Winters, Trent Hughes, Mikey Anderson, and PK Avery.

Glendale Middle School takes pride in empowering students and their families to develop healthy communicative relationships, gain deeper appreciation of themselves and others, and learn peaceful problem-solving skills. In the Salt Lake City School District, Glendale Middle School is the most diverse middle school in the district with 88.4 percent of the students identifying as non-white and 70 percent English language learners. Now they are fully equipped to ride bikes and learn how cycling can benefit the brain and improve learning in the class while on the trails.

An Inherited Love of Cycling Created a Family Legacy of giving back

Andrew shared insight into why his entire family attended the event: “This Outride build day is a donation in memory of my wife’s father, Loredano Poletti. Lore passed away from Parkinson’s 2 years ago. His life was pretty much the American story, from World War ll refugee in Africa and Italy, to National Champion Bike racer of Eritrea in 1951, to arriving in the USA at 35, speaking no English, and then creating an amazing life here.”

Andrew shared some photos of Loredano racing and his legacy to his family—and how he instilled a love and passion for riding for generations of the Poletti family. And, for the bike nerd… note, his bike in these photos below is 1x5, with a 48 tooth front ring, and a rear 5 speed 14-16-18-20-22.

Andrew shared, “His final bike was a Stumpjumper Marathon Carbon 26,” with disc brakes & clipless pedals. Considering his first bike had a Campagnolo rod derailleur on the chainstay, he saw it all; and as an engineer & cyclist, he loved what bikes became. Cycling was an early thing Parkinsons took from him, in the row of indignities that disease inflicts. Lore was my friend, and I miss him. He would have been quite honored by this.”

The hard-working spirit and cycling labor of love was truly evident at the event and through the delivery of the bikes to Glendale Middle. A true legacy to the sport of cycling—enriching the youth of today to be able to use cycling as a tool to improve social, emotional, and cognitive health,

Thank you to Andrew Love, his family, Specialized, and all the volunteers who made this build day possible!

The Gift of Giving Back— 50 bikes built & delivered to Glendale Middle School!

An Inherited Love of Cycling Created a Family Legacy of giving back