South HS MTB

Coaches

Please consider volunteering to be a coach! For safety, liability and reasons of insurance, etc. a level 1 license is required to participate in group rides. More practically for us a small team, we are very limited in our ability to participate and grow the team without coaches having a level 2 and level 3 license... so achieving a level 1 license and putting in hours with the team sets us up with a pipeline of coaches for the future. A level 1 license requires 1-2 evenings' worth of online training and a nominal fee.

Rob Ford (Head Coach) - Email: robertdford@yahoo.com / phone: 303-506-9693

Matt Sands - Email: mjsands@comcast.net / phone: 303-482-2426

Bryan Ingraham - Email: bryaningraham@yahoo.com / phone: 303-587-6422

Steve Jones - Email: snakebird.jones@gmail.com / phone: 720-934-0475

Scott Reed - Email: scott_m_reed@yahoo.com / phone: 503-473-4021

Dan Harrison - Email: danielharrison111@gmail.com / phone: 720-219-9021

Jonathan Edwards - Email: s34gull@gmail.com / phone: 303-903-6240

Randall Baldwin - Email: randallleebaldwin@gmail.com / phone: 970-379-9757

Steve Cunningham - Email: steve_j_cunningham@yahoo.com / phone: 303-378-6904

Ciana Beller - Email: ciana.mae.beller@gmail.com / phone: 970-589-6149

Team and Race Registration

Riders can register at https://ccnbikes.com/#!/memberships/colorado-high-school-cycling-league. The team passcode is "SouthFTW"

Race registration is handled separately, but via the same site. If you preregister for the whole season, it costs somewhat less. More importantly, you won't miss race registration deadlines which come up sooner than expected prior to the race. It is an unfortunately common occurrence that someone misses a race that they wanted to do because they missed the race registration deadline. The league cuts us no slack out of fairness to everyone, and I am unable to work any magic to get an exception.

Prospective riders and coaches can ride one time with the team prior to registration, with a liability waiver, accessed at https://drive.google.com/file/d/17YsybaGfcwjlMrgJjuBtEqiWxFB-KuqZ/view?usp=sharing 

Communications

We will utilize the following mechanisms for team communications.

General organizational updates, etc. related to the season, etc. will be via email. And all major information will be made available on this web site. 

Team activity planning will be handled via Band. Riders are responsible for installing and using this app to indicate their attendance. Also, it is the preferred mechanism for communicating logistics related to an event, etc. Please contact Rob if you need access. (Band.us... 2025 invite link is https://band.us/n/a1a2AeX39a0eQ)

Individual coach phone numbers are provided only for urgent communications when primary mechanisms above are not available. League policy is to avoid person-to-person rider-coach communications outside platforms such as TeamApp, Band, etc..

Dues and Fundraising

We will be working with vertical raise this year on a fundraising campaign instead of asking for dues. We are trying this for a couple of reasons: one is that it is easier and less work than managing scholarships. Two, it has the potential to raise more money than rider dues, which gives us the flexibility to remove other barriers to entry to riders, such as team dinners, a stable of loaner bikes, uniforms, etc. (TBD, depending on where we land, etc.)

Fundraising will be a three week campaign running through May. The kickoff date is being planned, will be communicated shortly (targeting mid-May). Please note the following, as it is very important to have active participation in this:

• Please have your rider available at the event, in uniform if possible. This is our kickoff, in which we will film a short video and get the kids set up for the campaign. (Hopefully we can combine with a ride.)

• Pre-work. Please work with your rider to collect 20 email addresses (load them in a note in the phone so that they are easy to load into the fundraising site) of people who the student would like to ask for support. Relatives, friends, etc. The lacrosse team raised an incredible amount of money this way, and we can operate on a tiny fraction of what they were able to raise.

• Donate! Consider this our dues, and if we are successful, we can keep this activity more affordable for anyone who wants to explore mountain biking. 

On a related note. Please also consider whether you have access or willingness to share some of the things that make the sport expensive or hard to access. e.g. loaner bikes, rides to trailheads, a spare bed in the condo, etc. These sorts of things can pose a significant barrier. Before a ride or event, let's discuss logistics in TeamApp and hopefully that will make it easier for people to attend things... even well-to-do kids are challenged when it comes to transportation to a trail.

Season

Our preseason will begin in May. We are allowed 8 preseason activities, one of which will be our fundraiser kickoff. These will be scheduled shortly, expect one approximately every other week.

On July 14, regular season begins. We can conduct up to 4 practices per week, although the way things work out, we are usually challenged to do more than two per week, especially during the summer. 

Our first race is Sunday August 24, and races are scheduled every two weeks following. It comes up quickly, so please consider attending summer practices as much as is practical so you're not knocking the rust off or figuring out your bike's mechanicals on your first race.

This year, we intent to break our season into two phases. During summer, we will operate similar to last year, aiming to be flexible considering everyone's limited availability. Then, for returning high school racers (and ideally everyone on the team), we would like to aim to have everyone attend a majority of practices starting August 11 and continuing for the next two months. Of course, individual circumstances vary, so please contact a coach to work out details of your availability.

Resources

League Site: 

Complete schedules, rules, coaching information, etc. can all be found at: https://coloradomtb.org/ If you have any questions at all about anything, there is an abundance of information here. We are in the Platte division.

Sponsor Shop

We have partnered with Campus Cycles who has been great to us and has been instrumental in getting several of us great deals on bikes. Please frequent them and mention your affiliation with the team, and give them tons of thanks!

To get a discount on bikes... you will need your registration information from the league, i.e. your profile in CCN bikes. Please contact me if you need help with this, it can be a bit tricky and sometimes I need to ping Cheri at the league.