Outride in Salt Lake City

Pictured: The Outride team with two Riding for Focus Champions. Left to Right: Esther, JO Braithwaite – R4F Champion, Lauren, Chazz, and Dr. Drew vonLintel – R4F Champion

The Outride team started off October strong by attending the Grand Opening for the Specialized Salt Lake City Office, an important hub for distributing bikes to many of our R4F programs across the country. We also visited three Riding for Focus (R4F) programs and met with the incredible instructors making the programs come to life! Each educator shared how the R4F program has brought something special to their school, and how they’ve made it their own over their years of implementing the program.

Our first visit was to observe Dr. Drew vonLintel’s first class of the day at Hillside Middle School. Dr. Drew has been teaching R4F since 2017 and is doing amazing things with his programming. In his tenure, he has secured extra grant money for recumbent bikes and an electric quad to make his R4F class more accessible to students with differing abilities. Additionally, he has gone above and beyond by engaging Kinesiology students from a course he teaches at the University of Utah to assist with his classes and collect more in-depth data in partnership for a research project with Dr. Yang Bai.

We also had the chance to visit Lucas Tucker at Glendale Middle School. Coach Tucker has been teaching R4F since 2020. Our team was inspired by his bike storage setup which had amazing murals by a local artist who combined different works of art by the students to paint on the walls. Despite starting during the pandemic, Coach Tucker has already impacted over 1400 R4F students, teaching them to become safe and “road ready” cyclists while introducing them to local trails.

Finally, we worked our way down to Payson, Utah to ride with one of the first R4F programs with instructor, JO Braithwaite at Payson Jr. High. JO has been teaching R4F since 2012, impacting countless students! We enjoyed being students in her class for the day – practicing our shifting, exploring the beautiful trails, learning what the students think of R4F (they love riding with friends and leaving the school property), and most importantly, having fun! JO has sustained her program for over a decade by applying for and securing external funding to maintain and renew her fleet of bikes. Truly incredible! We also saw a great example of how R4F has inspired students to continue biking in new ways, with some students joining their local NICA teams, and then serving as student leaders for others going through the R4F classes.

The team also celebrated the Grand Opening of the Specialized Distribution Center. The Distribution Centers in both Salt Lake City, Utah and Columbus, Ohio are crucial for delivering the Outride-specific Rockhoppers to newly granted R4F schools. R4F instructors have often remarked how easy and seamless the process is, and we extend our gratitude to the Specialized employees there for their hard work and dedication. During the event, Outride was able to table and educate the attendees on the local R4F programs happening in their area, and to speak to the positive benefits that bicycling has on social, emotional, and cognitive health. Local R4F champions joined us at the event and shared more about the incredible impact the programs are having at their schools.

If you are feeling inspired by our R4F instructors above and want to bring bicycling to your community, the Riding for Focus grant application is open from 10/14/24 to 1/31/25. Apply here or share the grant with a middle school teacher who would love to teach the next generation of cyclists!