Golden Age

from Outside Online by AC Shilton

Although many folks likely deserve a small amount of credit, one organization was resoundingly echoed by all my sources as being crucial to this moment’s success. It, too, began at the grassroots level: the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA). 

NICA started in 1998, when Matt Fritzinger, a math teacher at Berkeley High School in California, tried to form a road-cycling team. “But all the kids showed up with mountain bikes,” says Steve Matous, current president of the group. Now NICA has 22,000 members in 27 states participating in middle and high school level mountain-bike races.