Mum, I met a guy on the internet and I’m flying across the States to Minnesota to stay with him for a week. I get it, that sounds slightly insane/dangerous… but if you’ve been in the mountain bike world for a while (a while=20+ years), and have a real good spidey sense (spidey sense=a mum for a police officer that made sure you were always on high alert), then this doesn’t seem that insane at all. In fact, it is totally normal in my world.

When Bruce picked me up from the airport (in a van, ha!) and opened the door with a can of cold sparkling water (unopened of course), I knew I was in the right place. His contagious smile and 4 month old baby as a copilot also helped. We were straight into the history of the area and the acknowledgement of massive generational trauma (like most places in the States) due to colonisation. His depth of knowledge is only something you can get when you have spent a lot of time (aka 30+ years) and care an awful lot about the people who have and do reside there.

Bruce is the mastermind behind the National Center for Youth Development… although he would hate that I even label him as that. Essentially, he’s a human that cares deeply about the power of bikes as a catalyst for change, specifically with young people. To hear more about Bruce’s check out the super entertaining The Stable Cyclist podcast where Bruce may or may not take his shirt off.

Now Bruce would not (and could not) be Bruce without Lisa. She is a force (and would have to be to put up with Bruce, ha!), who runs her own physio gig, started a women’s ride group, and now runs a mountain bike skills coaching company. Lisa and her business partner/friend Leigh set up Stöke MTB a few years back. Their entire mission is to empower others to feel the joy of mountain biking. Something I can totally relate to with WORD and Joyride…. we spent many hours with cups of tea chatting structure, coaching styles, and ideal bike set ups for infants.

We’re now into the weekend and we hit the road for a local XC race over in Wisconsin. I do love that about the States… there is never a lack of options when it comes to mountain bike events. Each weekend you have your choice of 3-5 races all within a 5 hour drive. I wonder what our racing culture would be like in NZ if we had those kind of options… compared to the 3 races a year that are specifically for young people.

Check out this set up?!

Heading back to the States is always filled with mixed feelings. I did a study abroad programme at Lincoln University (my very first introduction into gumboots, stubbies, and popping your collar up) in 2005 and really just never left (don’t worry, I stayed on with a legit visa). So while I love coming back to Arizona to see family and a few friends, I’ve actually spent almost half my life in NZ. The States feels familiar, I’m nostalgic. Yet there are some things that are making America Great Again (ahem) that don’t quite fit with my world view anymore. So while I’m here, I’m embracing my family, love of Mexican food, and the joy of exploring new places… enter in my first stop on the Youth MTB organisations Study Tour (that really needs a better name)… Bentonville, Arkansas. Yep, elevation 386m and home to Walmart. It wouldn’t have been my first thought of a mountain bike destination but…

If you’ve never heard of Bentonville, then you’re in for a treat. Photos (like my really average one below) really can’t do this place justice. Like most people in Bentonville, they have/are working for the $546 billion dollar(?!) Walmart corporation. Over the past 2 decades, The Walton Foundation have donated over $75 million dollars to build and maintain trails (and cycling infrastructure) to make Bentonville into a mountain bike destination. How much? Well… ‘the foundation supported the construction of 208 miles of natural-surface trails and 72 miles of multi-use paved paths’. Each year over 100,000 people visit the region bringing in over $140 million in economic returns… sounds like a good investment if you ask me. Want to really see it in action? I thought so… grab a hot drink and check out this great video by Berm Peak.

Now before we get into it, let’s talk about the ride from the airport… Like most of my travels, I’ve found that if you have a bike close by (or a helmet attached to a backpack in my case), you’re going to meet someone who just gets it (ie. another biker). Aidan, is one of the the new sponsored freeriders on the YT team in for the festival. That lead to Jimmy, the marketing guy, who was in town to launch The Mill, YT Industries new showroom and also happened to be Aiden’s (and now mine) uber for the evening. Well that’s all pretty normal bike world stuff in my book, but what wasn’t was the other people Jimmy was picking up, all the way in from Barcelona. Out into the steamy summer evening walks 1990’s hip hop legend Jeru the Damaja and DJ Sensi here for 36 hours to play at The Mill launch party the following day. I was quickly upskilled about their coolness by Jimmy and their chats about late nights in Barcelona. After a stop for some fried chicken burgers, the 5 of us arrived in downtown Bentonville. And no, I didn’t tell my mum about this…

Bike School Bentonville: where ‘bikes lead to adventure, confidence takes flight, and community grows stronger, one trail at a time’. I was introduced to Kyla, the founder of Bike School Bentonville, through Bruce (more on him in the next blog) as the epicentre of all things bike in Bentonville. Her and her family have been living there for almost 20 years, back when there were only a few miles (yep, we’re in America) of trails. After a couple of online chats she invited (ok I may have asked) me into her home for a long weekend of all things biking.

From cups of tea (Kyla only drinks SPORTea), bike rides, late night ice cream stops, and early evening impromptu dance parties, I was treated to all things Bike School Bentonville. For the most part, there’s a lot we (WORD) have in common, after school programmes and holiday camps. They are the masters of gamifying skills and sweet merch(look out WORD 2024/2025 season!). And I adore their top skill and personal trait end of season certificates and their love of snacks. They leave most of the teen stuff to the NICA world (aka race team world), but do make plenty of space for young people to be coaches. It made me reflect on the role youth development has on WORD. It is everything. From our teen rides, to co-designed trips away, and the Assistant Instructor programme, supporting young people to develop and grow is at the centre of our world. If NZ had an organisation like NICA around, youth mountain biking might look a whole lot different. I’m still trying to figure out a way to really do ‘racing’ justice. Kyla and I reached the same question…How do you run a programme for young people that want to race, while at the same time believing that racing doesn’t matter?

Now, I have a confession…Kyla and Bike School Bentonville weren’t the only reason for the trip…this trip also happened to coincide with the Bentonville Bike Festival… ok ok that bit was totally planned, but boy oh boy I wasn’t ready for this. Town, the trails, the Bike Festival venue were pumping with the 15,000 people that come to town for this weekend. An expo, a bunch of bike races, trails demos, dual slalom races, and heaps of group rides. I joined in one with the incredible Marley Blonsky of All Bodies on Bikes who of course is Kyla’s neighbor.

After 2 days of the festival, things looked a little bit different with Kyla and her fam bam…

The community came out in force… neighbors helping others remove trees that had fallen across their driveway, friends sharing frozen meals before they all defrosted due to the power outage, taking turns with all the kids to bike around the neighbourhood to relieve boredom.

While I may have not ridden all the trails I planned to, or had the conversations I was hoping too, I saw something more important. I’d like to think that most towns would rally like this after a big weather event… maybe it’s just a small town thing or maybe… it’s the shared connection of bikes.

To help support the Bentonville trails clean up, check out Trailblazers.

A massive thanks to Kyla and her whanau for welcoming/feeding/teaching me the ways of Bentonville. And a big shout out to Sport NZ’s Susie Simcock Leadership Scholarship for making this trip possible!

Next destination…. the happiest city in the US…

Just over a year ago I received the SportNZ Susie Simcock Future Leaders’ Scholarship. This award is to celebrate, promote and encourage the work of a young (yep I still qualify) emerging leaders in the sport and recreation sector. Read more about the incredible Susie Simcock whom this award was named after. Now the SportNZ awards, for those of you that are new in that world, are pretty much like the Olympics of the sport and recreation professionals awards. Let’s digress a bit here into how on earth I became a ‘professional’ in sport and recreation.

We’re going to head back to 2002 (not actually when that cute photo of me was taken, it’s just there for streamer appreciation) when I was finishing up high school (again that would be weird if I was 6 when I finished high school) in Arizona, the internet wasn’t really a thing on my radar, you could buy a $4 burrito, and I knew all the words to every Green Day song (also the Backstreet Boys, just in case you were getting the impression that I was actually cool). It was a rule in our house that I would go to university so I reluctantly agreed and then quickly got stoked when I found out you could actually get a degree in people and the outdoors (aka Parks and Recreation). My mum wanted me to be a dentist, but then she reluctantly agreed because at least I was going to college. You see, we weren’t a family that did ‘outdoors’ things and in fact the first time I went camping was school camp at the age of 12. It was that trip that sparked my love of the outdoors and the power that nature has to bring us together.

At 18 years old, I got a job as a summer camp counselor (how american of me), went for my first mountain bike ride, and realised that I had found ‘it’. That ‘it’ was my ikigai. While it took up until a couple years ago that I learned there was actually a term for this ‘it’ of mine, I knew that all I wanted to do was work with people in the outdoors and do some real good in the world.

So after moving to NZ in 2005, I found my community in Wellington, in mountain biking. It was here in my new home that I wanted to dig in and do some good. But to do some good and be actually useful to this community, I needed to learn a bit more. I grabbed every opportunity to get better… went to all the mountain bike skills courses I could find, started a weekly riding group that evolved into the (still going!) women’s cycling club (yay Revolve!), did a post graduate in education to learn how schooling worked in NZ, started a MTB tourism company (RIP Bike Wellington, I was way ahead of my time), guided cycling tours in remote destinations (gosh I still miss those donuts of Kyrgyzstan), a MTB skills course company with a bestie (Joyride 4eva!…. well not really, that’s wrapped up now too), and then the stars aligned to start WORD. Now we’re talking!

It turns out that when you get niche into a subject, opportunities come your way. I think it also helped that I am a woman, and there weren’t lots of us in that space (gosh that’s a whole topic in itself), and I also had (and still do have) this deep down belief that the world needs more women needed to be in leadership roles, specifically in the mountain bike world. So I just kept saying yes…writing articles in magazines, joining the team that developed the first NZ MTB instructor qualifications, organising mountain bike events, training and assessing MTB instructors around the country, and becoming a MTB technical expert for auditing.

Gosh that makes it sound like I am a crazy yes person. Maybe. But I do know that I have a rather long resume that would help me get a job in like 2 fields… and yes, my mum is proud.

Now let’s get back to Susie…. as I stood up there at the SportNZ awards in front of hundreds of professionals in the industry, and it dawned on my that I am now, in fact a professional. A rather youthful professional (obviously), but a professional nonetheless. As if this award couldn’t get any better… it came with a chunk of money to do something ‘professional’. I know I know, what on earth does a recreation professional due for professional development?

I’m off on a study tour!

It’s a big wide world out there, and if WORD is to be the best youth mountain bike organisation in all the land, it’s time to see what the best are being best at. Over the next 6 weeks I’ll be visiting youth MTB organisations around America (yep, those orange stars above that in no way are geographically accurate). I’m heading on an adventure to discover 5 key things:

1. Research- competitive vs non competitive youth MTB programmes

2. Teen girls- joining and keeping!

3. Youth Leadership- being an authentic youth MTB organisation at all levels 

4. Organisational admin (back end systems, financing, instructor training, governance)

5. Share the love....how can we all in this industry help each other

EEEKKK! This is very exciting! I’m so looking forward to connecting with others that share the WORD values.

A huge Big Ups (aka Thanks in WORD world) to SportNZ for this once in a lifetime opportunity to grow as a pro. And also to the WORD Board for saying go for it, and the WORD Leadership Team for holding down the fort while I’m away, you’re the best!

xoxo

Ash

All good stories begin with a good quote…

‘Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.’ ~SJ

Kia ora and welcome to ‘Founder’s Folly’. You’re reading the start of a new blog for us here at WORD. It’s written by me, Ash Peters, the Founder of WORD. You see, for the past 11 years WORD and I have grown up together. And we’ve learned a few things along the way… it feels a bit big and a bit scary to lay it out there. But as we know, sometimes it’s just best to accept the nervousness and channel it into excitement.

This blog is kind of like a love letter. If you’re a Yoga with Adriene fan, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s words from my heart to yours. I’ll be sharing with ya’ll the things that make WORD, well, WORD. We’ll dig into what makes WORD work (and what doesn’t), what makes this community so special, and why we do what we do. And why on earth we are on a mission to change the world, one ride at a time.

So why call it ‘Founder’s Folly’? Well a while back… I came across this quote:

‘Follow your folly? But isn't folly a lack of good sense; a foolish act or idea? Au contraire, we say folly is freeing. Folly laughs at the status quo, protests mediocrity, signs in the blind alley and celebrates the wild hare. It's relevant irreverence. It's living like there is a tomorrow.’ -New Belgium Co.

Well there you have it folks… I have a feeling if you’re joining us here then you’re the kind of person that follows your folly too. Thanks for popping in, and I’m so looking forward to sharing this ride with you!

xoxo

Ash