Rural racers help Missouri Interscholastic Cycling League grow
Imagine a sport where no one rides the bench, there are no tryouts, parents can join their kids and the emphasis is more on developing character than winning. Welcome to the Missouri Interscholastic Cycling League, or MICL, one of the fastest-growing, nontraditional sports available to today’s youth in grades 6 through 12.
The league started in 2018 as part of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) and has grown to include more than 630 Missouri students on 36 teams. During the season, which runs from July through October, the mountain bikers will compete on trails tailor-made for their cycling skills.
“The big motivation for me in helping found the league is there’s a whole generation of kids who don’t necessarily want to play the ball sports or may not have the skill set or the interest or it’s not fun for them,” says Chris Mileski, co-director of MICL. “Mountain biking is one of those sports where all kids can participate. It’s a lifelong sport. It’s something you can do until you’re older.”
Rural areas were well represented when the league debuted in 2018. Riders based in Anderson, St. Joseph, Warsaw and West Plains were among the inaugural league teams, despite a lack of trails and a much smaller base of cycling enthusiasts compared to urban areas.
Today you can find MICL mountain bike teams that include rural kids in and around Forsyth, St. Joseph, Cape Girardeau, Arcadia Valley, Columbia, Jefferson City, Rolla, Neosho and Poplar Bluff. The interest mirrors a growth in mountain bike trails as small towns recognize the tourism draw and health benefits mountain biking brings.
“Last year on our team we had half the kids who had never been in any organized sports,” says Madison Davis, a coach for the St. Joseph Composite Nighthawks. “It just wasn’t interesting to them. They found this, and it was something they could enjoy and have success with.”
He says the composite team — which draws from a geographic area rather than a single school — includes kids from Maryville, Avenue City and Savannah in addition to those from St. Joseph. Once a composite team has been around for a couple years and grows past the strict ratio of one coach to every six students, they transition into a school team. That was the case in southwest Missouri, where school teams are now based at the McDonald County and Neosho school districts along with the Southwest Missouri Composite.
League organizers envisioned having at least one event in St. Louis and Kansas City where the largest number of teams are based. Instead, races are primarily being held outside Missouri’s metro areas where welcome mats are being rolled out. For 2024, five of the six events bring riders to outstate areas including Jefferson City, Warsaw, Rolla, Smithville and Highlandville. The lone exception is an event held at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
“I think communities are starting to realize now that if they build mountain bike trails they bring events,” Chris says. “We’ve been to Warsaw every year. You can’t get a hotel room, a campground space, an Airbnb or hardly even eat in a restaurant there because we sell out that whole weekend. We’ve done economic impact studies, and we’re dumping anywhere from $180,000 to $200,000 into that community on a weekend that we’re there.”
At the first event of the season, teams from all over Missouri took over Jefferson City’s Binder Park for the Binder Lake Bash. The pit areas quickly filled with colorful tents emblazoned with team names and mascots: West Plains Mountaineers, Columbia Raptors, Central Missouri Lumberjacks and SEMO Mudcats to name a few.
Bikes were everywhere as the riders tested the course or warmed up their leg muscles on the road. Thumping bass from huge speakers got the riders pumped for the series of races that got underway every 20 minutes or so for six hours.
The number of racers was dwarfed by the huge crowd of spectators. They rang cowbells, shouted encouragement through loudspeakers and generally urged riders to do their best on a hot afternoon. What’s amazing is the support they showed for every rider, not just those they came to see. The cheers were just as loud for the last riders to cross the finish line as they were for the race winners.
For Cam Newton, a member of the JeffCo Billygoats, interest in mountain biking came during the COVID-19 lockdown.
“I started going on hikes, just because I didn’t have anything else to do over the summer,” he says. “It was kind of like the only thing you could do, because we were social distanced and whatnot. Me and my family started going on hikes in the woods, and I’d see these guys fly by on these bikes and I just thought it was cool, and I wanted to try it out. I got a bike from Walmart and gave it a shot, and really liked it. I found out there’s a team in the area, joined, and it just kind of spiraled from there.”
He says mountain biking complements his soccer playing by building his endurance and working the same muscles he uses on the field.
Andrew Dungan, who rides for the St. Charles Composite Bears, says the friendships he’s made outweigh his success on the bike. “Some of my closest friends are through this program. I think it’s a great program. It gets kids into the sport, gets kids active. It’s kind of something different, something fun.”
He adds he went from being one of the slowest riders on the team to winning a state title last year. It’s that kind of sport. “You just gotta have a bike and a helmet and want to come out here and have fun,” he says.
Sharing the joy of off-road cycling is what prompted Troy Witte to help establish the West Plains Composite team and continue as one of its coaches. “I mountain biked in the ’90s, and this was a great opportunity to invest into youth and let them make forever memories with mountain biking,” he says. “See all kinds of different trails, meet all kinds of different people throughout the state, make new friends, camaraderie. It’s a great organization. We take all levels, from not knowing how to ride a bicycle all the way up to the very experienced.”
The team was hampered at first by the lack of a local trail. Initially they trained on the Ozark Trail, but the kids found it too rough, especially for beginners. That’s when the team partnered with the city of West Plains to build a trail on unused land in the city’s Buck Park.
“We built 3.7 miles of trail there in West Plains, which was kind of benchmarked after some of the trails we’ve raced throughout the state,” the Mountaineer coach says. “So, we can prepare the kids properly when they come to race day.”
Coaches are volunteers and likely parents of riders. Many parents ride alongside their kids during practices. Coaches need not bring experience as they are well trained through coaching clinics sponsored by MICL and NICA. They are also trained in first aid, a nod to the fact that accidents can happen on a bike ridden off road.
Entry into the league can be expensive. Once an athlete gets the bug, a step up to a true mountain bike with hydraulic disc brakes, carbon-fiber frame and front and rear suspension can set them back more than $1,000 for a new bike. There are also team and league fees to consider.
Some teams offer scholarships to help members get started and less-expensive used or loaner bikes show up frequently.
Chris says the league is filling a need for kids who likely would otherwise be sitting on their couches playing video games.
“We build playgrounds, right?” he says. “What age are you when you phase out of a playground? Maybe, like 3, 4 years old, maybe 5. And then there’s nothing else for kids, unless they’re in organized sports. We kind of outcast these kids, because if there’s no bike park or there’s no pump track or anything like that, there’s nothing for these kids to do. I think our program is definitely helping these kids find a community they can belong to.”
For more information visit the MICL website at www.missourimtb.org or find them on Facebook.