Riding for Fun, Friends, and Fitness:

Advancing Youth Health and Well-being through Outride's Riding for Focus Program

We believe bicycles have the power to make lives better — they bring people and communities together, motivate us to become better humans, and help us take advantage of what the world has to offer.

Youth are facing record levels of physical inactivity and mental health issues, exacerbated by COVID-19. Young girls and marginalized populations, including youth of color and youth from low-income communities, disproportionately shoulder the burden of these crises.

Cycling provides a means to mitigate many of these negative trends. However, our findings suggest that not all youth have access to bikes or know how to ride, let alone access to safe routes. School-based cycling programs offer one path to get more youth active and pedaling for social, emotional, and cognitive health.

In “Riding for Fun, Friends, and Freedom”, we summarize Spring 2021 data from Outride's Riding for Focus (R4F) middle-school cycling program that demonstrates the power of bicycling to engage students, build new skills, and spark interest in continuing to ride beyond the classroom, all while supporting youth physical and mental health.  

In the report, we share how students are faring, provide benchmarks of student bicycling knowledge and access, how students and teachers respond to the R4F program, and opportunities and recommendations for continuing to engage young people through bicycling.