Information you need to know! - for Parents and Athletes
The mission of the Armstrong Cycle Club is to provide Armstrong High School students with the opportunity to strengthen their minds, bodies and character through the sport of cycling. We build healthy, active cycling lifestyles that will last a lifetime.
Our program seeks to strike a balance between being a competitive individual and team sport while retaining some gentler recreation club qualities. For athletes new to cycling, immediate immersion into training, racing, and the pressure to perform may be intimidating. For this reason, the League has carefully designed individual racing classes so beginners, intermediate and advanced riders race only against peers of similar ability and experience. Each club’s coaches do their best to carefully place riders in the following categories: 6th, 7th, 8th, Freshmen, JV2, JV3, and Varsity.
Each of the 70+ Minnesota teams races in four out of the five regular season races and the All State Finale race at the end of the season. Riders are scored individually and on a team basis. Girl’s scores and boy’s scores are added together in the team computation.
Why cycling?
Cycling is a family-friendly fitness activity that can be done for a lifetime, with great social qualities. Groups of cyclists often talk, joke, and some even sing as they ride. Enthusiasm for cycling as a sport and healthy lifestyle is at an all-time high, especially here in Minnesota with so many great places to ride. Training and racing with a team provides life lessons in self-discipline, teamwork, leadership and sportsmanship, along with fitness and camaraderie. Some sports tend to favor certain body types. Cycling is different. The bicycle is an equalizer, showing little favor to any particular body type by adapting to each rider. There is a place for everyone on a bike.
Are Mountain Bikes Dangerous?
Forget what you’ve seen on TV with the X-Games or soft drink commercials. In cross-country bike races, the average speed is usually around ten to twelve miles per hour. This is an endurance sport where fitness and skill are more important than bravery or risk taking. Each year, the League collects data on injuries from every team. Typically, for the whole League combined, there will be one or two broken bones, some sprains, a few cuts, some bruises, lots of nicks and scrapes, but little else. Statistically, we suffer fewer serious injuries than most other mainstream sports, especially contact sports.
We do our best to minimize the risks to your athlete. Risky behaviors are discouraged or forbidden, the League helmet rule is strictly enforced and we teach each athlete bike-control skills early in the season to minimize the risk of crashing. After all, if you crash you not only risk injury but you also miss out on the fun riding and racing with your friends. Even with our best efforts, crashes and injuries can occur. Coaches are trained in Concussion assessment, CPR, AED, and have Wilderness First Aid Training. Coaches carry first aid kits and athlete medical information during practices and races. Coaches and ride volunteers carry cell phones and athletes are encouraged to carry cell phones as well. Athletes never ride alone. The league requires at least one coach for every six riders during practices.
Bike Racing is Girl-Friendly:
There are lots of girls racing in the League. In fact, girl participation is the fastest growing demographic and our team culture is truly co-ed. We work hard to provide an experience that encourages and celebrates girls’ needs and tastes while offering challenges that will test anyone's body, mind and character. The MN high school cycling league works hard to ensure that high school girls have the opportunity to shred some dirt and practice the developmental skills that challenging sports like cycling have to offer.
How We Build Our Team:
We don’t have tryouts. Anyone who wants to ride and is willing to put in the time and effort is welcome on our team. Armstrong Cycle Club has a proven history of turning inexperienced and out-of-shape beginners into capable and confident riders. Athletes who are already in good condition adapt quickly to cycling and do very well.
Practice and Training:
Starting in July, the team will begin practices on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. I addition to riding, practices may include core body strengthening, jogging and stair climbing. The exact times and locations of practices are kept on a website called Team Snap, and can be shared with team members once they have joined. Once the actual riding starts, we split the team workouts into fitness-based groups since our goal is to challenge but not overwhelm each rider. All groups do a similar type of ride, albeit at different paces. Our younger riders mix training with fun activities while our more experienced riders spend more time on focused training programs. Groups are coed where practical, and often times based on friend groups.
Our training scheme is a carefully planned schedule of rides that gradually increase in distance and difficulty over a four month timeframe. This timeframe is long enough to insure that an athlete progresses at a rate gradual enough to avoid injury with the goal of achieving peak fitness by season’s end. The concept of a “periodization” based training scheme requires a combination of hard efforts and rest periods. Each are vital to a successful training program and they cannot be artificially compressed into a shorter timeframe without diminishing effectiveness. It’s important that your athlete avoids the temptation to do extra workouts beyond what is recommended. Athletes who train too little, intermittently or too often run a higher risk of injury, fatigue and mental burnout.
With a bit of effort, ordinary athletes can attain impressive results through setting goals, mapping strategies and giving the task a disciplined effort. Cycle Club athletes who work hard will be transformed by the process. By season’s end, rides who follow our progressive training schedule will be easily able to handle a four hour ride on hilly terrain or a hundred mile “century” ride.
Nutrition:
Nutrition is a very important part of fueling an active athlete and building a strong, healthy body. I will encourage informed and responsible eating habits on and off the bike, in season and all year long. While this is not a weight-loss program, fat loss and increased lean muscle-mass are typical results of training. Active athletes require more high quality calories from complex carbohydrates and more protein to build the body. I will encourage athletes to view food as a source of nutrition when off the bike and fuel only while training and to avoid junk food or empty calories. Nutrition will be discussed more as the season progresses.
Parents and Others Ride Along:
Training for bike racing is hard work. Fortunately, it’s also a lot of fun and the team sometimes ends rides with social time. Across the nation, 20 percent of the athletes’ parents report that they have begun riding as a result of their kids’ participation in a cycling club. For safety reasons, AHS Cycle Club needs parent volunteers to ride with the athletes to and from practice. At the races, you will discover that the other teams in the League are full of delightful kids with encouraging coaches and wonderfully supportive parents. At the races, the whole gallery of spectators cheers and rings cowbells not just for their own kids, but yours too! This is a very friendly and inclusive sport.
Team Communication:
You can tap into our communication stream many different ways, but our website and our weekly email bursts are the most informative. Please visit ww.armstrongcycleclub.com to find links to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Email and website posts will discuss upcoming training schedules, offer feedback about rides completed, include team news, tips, motivation and encouragement, recognition, strategic planning for races, club policies, apparel, bike gear, travel planning, unrelated fun tidbits, bike culture and more. Please check your email on Sunday night and the team website periodically!
About Commitment:
There is no requirement to attend all practices but it is strongly encouraged. The skills and fitness needed to be safe and have fun on off-road trails require regular practice. If your athlete regularly misses workouts, especially the Saturday rides; he/she will not progress at the same rate as fellow athletes. I guarantee that this will become a source of frustration for your student once they start having difficulty keeping up and sends a message to others that they are not committed to the team.
We promise to treat your athlete like a responsible young adult. If your athlete is unable to attend the agreed-upon practice rides because of school work, job schedules, family commitments or other concerns, it is important that they consult with the coaches to create an alternate plan to keep their season on track.
The club is a competition team and, as such, each participant is encouraged to try at least one race. If, after this experience, the rider determines that he/she is not into racing, then they can choose to not participate in future races. However, racing makes all of the riding and training worth the effort. Everyone is nervous at the starting line but it is an amazing, life changing experience to test one's body after training hard. This is where one moves beyond what he/she thinks they are capable of and learns something new and powerful about themselves. Students who join the team must be open to experience at least one race. One is usually enough to get them hooked!
Code of Conduct:
We are committed to safety and require each rider to ride in a safe and controlled manner. Riders who repeatedly flaunt our safety rules or engage in behaviors that present unnecessary risk to themselves or others will be dropped from the program. As visible representatives of Armstrong High School and ambassadors of cycling, athletes are expected to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with that status and follow the NICA and AHS rules of behavior at all times. During the registration process, athletes will sign NICA’s Code of Conduct. Please review the Athlete Code of Conduct on our team website, under the Club Policies tab.
About Academics:
The mission of the Armstrong Cycle Club is to provide high school students with the opportunity to strengthen their minds, bodies and character through the sport of cycling. We want to help develop our students academically, physically and socially into mature young adults. To qualify to participate in AHS Cycle Club, each athlete must be achieving academically in a manner satisfactory to the wishes of his/her parents and the standards of the school. Failure to maintain satisfactory academics during the cycling season is grounds to be dropped from the team.
You’ll Need Some Equipment:
Your athlete will need an appropriate bike, cycling clothing and other items. Please consult with me before you buy anything so I can help you get the right gear and minimize the cost. Bicycles and helmets must be inspected and approved for function and safety, then re-inspected at regular intervals. Getting all the equipment can be challenging. Prices vary widely and much is available both new and used on the internet at discount prices. NICA has worked hard to secure significant price discounts with many retailers across the country, specifically for NICA athletes and coaches. Let me help you find what you need. See the Equipment Tab on our website.
Cost of Participating:
The costs are broken into two payments. The club dues are $125 and they happen at Registration Night. This fee covers the licensing for coaches, team equipment, website subscription, Team Registration, and most other costs associated with the team. There is a $10 fee that is paid to NICA, which is our governing body that provides insurance to clubs, coaches and athletes for all events & practices. The second payment, the race dues, can be paid on Registration Night, or wait as late as two weeks before the race. They cover the athlete registration fees for the races. Each athlete will determine what races that they will participate in. There is a required $40 registration fee and the cost of each race is $40. We encourage our team members to do all 5 races, but it is not required. We strongly encourage all racers to do at least one race. The team will do fundraising to offset many of the team costs and provide scholarships are provided to those who demonstrate need. It is our goal that no student will be denied participation due to a lack of resources.
Required Forms:
To participate on the team, riders must complete NICA’s online registration process and electronically sign all of the required documents. The athlete must be fully registered before they can participate in any team activities.
Assistant Coaches and Team Officers:
For the kids to be successful we need lots of help from team parents and volunteers. Some help with business related activities and some act in the capacity of helper-coaches.
Beginner riders need help learning to keep their bikes in top mechanical shape, advice on training and racing, and plenty of encouragement and reassurance from those who are more experienced. I am always looking for parents who would like to be trained as assistant coaches and ride leaders. You do not have to be a talented rider or racer to function effectively in this role. You’ll learn as you go and it’s a lot of fun.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I ask that riders planning to be on the team attend Registration Night with at least one parent so that paperwork can be completed fully at this time. If that is not possible, please make arrangements with me ahead of time.
Coach Bill
Our program seeks to strike a balance between being a competitive individual and team sport while retaining some gentler recreation club qualities. For athletes new to cycling, immediate immersion into training, racing, and the pressure to perform may be intimidating. For this reason, the League has carefully designed individual racing classes so beginners, intermediate and advanced riders race only against peers of similar ability and experience. Each club’s coaches do their best to carefully place riders in the following categories: 6th, 7th, 8th, Freshmen, JV2, JV3, and Varsity.
Each of the 70+ Minnesota teams races in four out of the five regular season races and the All State Finale race at the end of the season. Riders are scored individually and on a team basis. Girl’s scores and boy’s scores are added together in the team computation.
Why cycling?
Cycling is a family-friendly fitness activity that can be done for a lifetime, with great social qualities. Groups of cyclists often talk, joke, and some even sing as they ride. Enthusiasm for cycling as a sport and healthy lifestyle is at an all-time high, especially here in Minnesota with so many great places to ride. Training and racing with a team provides life lessons in self-discipline, teamwork, leadership and sportsmanship, along with fitness and camaraderie. Some sports tend to favor certain body types. Cycling is different. The bicycle is an equalizer, showing little favor to any particular body type by adapting to each rider. There is a place for everyone on a bike.
Are Mountain Bikes Dangerous?
Forget what you’ve seen on TV with the X-Games or soft drink commercials. In cross-country bike races, the average speed is usually around ten to twelve miles per hour. This is an endurance sport where fitness and skill are more important than bravery or risk taking. Each year, the League collects data on injuries from every team. Typically, for the whole League combined, there will be one or two broken bones, some sprains, a few cuts, some bruises, lots of nicks and scrapes, but little else. Statistically, we suffer fewer serious injuries than most other mainstream sports, especially contact sports.
We do our best to minimize the risks to your athlete. Risky behaviors are discouraged or forbidden, the League helmet rule is strictly enforced and we teach each athlete bike-control skills early in the season to minimize the risk of crashing. After all, if you crash you not only risk injury but you also miss out on the fun riding and racing with your friends. Even with our best efforts, crashes and injuries can occur. Coaches are trained in Concussion assessment, CPR, AED, and have Wilderness First Aid Training. Coaches carry first aid kits and athlete medical information during practices and races. Coaches and ride volunteers carry cell phones and athletes are encouraged to carry cell phones as well. Athletes never ride alone. The league requires at least one coach for every six riders during practices.
Bike Racing is Girl-Friendly:
There are lots of girls racing in the League. In fact, girl participation is the fastest growing demographic and our team culture is truly co-ed. We work hard to provide an experience that encourages and celebrates girls’ needs and tastes while offering challenges that will test anyone's body, mind and character. The MN high school cycling league works hard to ensure that high school girls have the opportunity to shred some dirt and practice the developmental skills that challenging sports like cycling have to offer.
How We Build Our Team:
We don’t have tryouts. Anyone who wants to ride and is willing to put in the time and effort is welcome on our team. Armstrong Cycle Club has a proven history of turning inexperienced and out-of-shape beginners into capable and confident riders. Athletes who are already in good condition adapt quickly to cycling and do very well.
Practice and Training:
Starting in July, the team will begin practices on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings. I addition to riding, practices may include core body strengthening, jogging and stair climbing. The exact times and locations of practices are kept on a website called Team Snap, and can be shared with team members once they have joined. Once the actual riding starts, we split the team workouts into fitness-based groups since our goal is to challenge but not overwhelm each rider. All groups do a similar type of ride, albeit at different paces. Our younger riders mix training with fun activities while our more experienced riders spend more time on focused training programs. Groups are coed where practical, and often times based on friend groups.
Our training scheme is a carefully planned schedule of rides that gradually increase in distance and difficulty over a four month timeframe. This timeframe is long enough to insure that an athlete progresses at a rate gradual enough to avoid injury with the goal of achieving peak fitness by season’s end. The concept of a “periodization” based training scheme requires a combination of hard efforts and rest periods. Each are vital to a successful training program and they cannot be artificially compressed into a shorter timeframe without diminishing effectiveness. It’s important that your athlete avoids the temptation to do extra workouts beyond what is recommended. Athletes who train too little, intermittently or too often run a higher risk of injury, fatigue and mental burnout.
With a bit of effort, ordinary athletes can attain impressive results through setting goals, mapping strategies and giving the task a disciplined effort. Cycle Club athletes who work hard will be transformed by the process. By season’s end, rides who follow our progressive training schedule will be easily able to handle a four hour ride on hilly terrain or a hundred mile “century” ride.
Nutrition:
Nutrition is a very important part of fueling an active athlete and building a strong, healthy body. I will encourage informed and responsible eating habits on and off the bike, in season and all year long. While this is not a weight-loss program, fat loss and increased lean muscle-mass are typical results of training. Active athletes require more high quality calories from complex carbohydrates and more protein to build the body. I will encourage athletes to view food as a source of nutrition when off the bike and fuel only while training and to avoid junk food or empty calories. Nutrition will be discussed more as the season progresses.
Parents and Others Ride Along:
Training for bike racing is hard work. Fortunately, it’s also a lot of fun and the team sometimes ends rides with social time. Across the nation, 20 percent of the athletes’ parents report that they have begun riding as a result of their kids’ participation in a cycling club. For safety reasons, AHS Cycle Club needs parent volunteers to ride with the athletes to and from practice. At the races, you will discover that the other teams in the League are full of delightful kids with encouraging coaches and wonderfully supportive parents. At the races, the whole gallery of spectators cheers and rings cowbells not just for their own kids, but yours too! This is a very friendly and inclusive sport.
Team Communication:
You can tap into our communication stream many different ways, but our website and our weekly email bursts are the most informative. Please visit ww.armstrongcycleclub.com to find links to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Email and website posts will discuss upcoming training schedules, offer feedback about rides completed, include team news, tips, motivation and encouragement, recognition, strategic planning for races, club policies, apparel, bike gear, travel planning, unrelated fun tidbits, bike culture and more. Please check your email on Sunday night and the team website periodically!
About Commitment:
There is no requirement to attend all practices but it is strongly encouraged. The skills and fitness needed to be safe and have fun on off-road trails require regular practice. If your athlete regularly misses workouts, especially the Saturday rides; he/she will not progress at the same rate as fellow athletes. I guarantee that this will become a source of frustration for your student once they start having difficulty keeping up and sends a message to others that they are not committed to the team.
We promise to treat your athlete like a responsible young adult. If your athlete is unable to attend the agreed-upon practice rides because of school work, job schedules, family commitments or other concerns, it is important that they consult with the coaches to create an alternate plan to keep their season on track.
The club is a competition team and, as such, each participant is encouraged to try at least one race. If, after this experience, the rider determines that he/she is not into racing, then they can choose to not participate in future races. However, racing makes all of the riding and training worth the effort. Everyone is nervous at the starting line but it is an amazing, life changing experience to test one's body after training hard. This is where one moves beyond what he/she thinks they are capable of and learns something new and powerful about themselves. Students who join the team must be open to experience at least one race. One is usually enough to get them hooked!
Code of Conduct:
We are committed to safety and require each rider to ride in a safe and controlled manner. Riders who repeatedly flaunt our safety rules or engage in behaviors that present unnecessary risk to themselves or others will be dropped from the program. As visible representatives of Armstrong High School and ambassadors of cycling, athletes are expected to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with that status and follow the NICA and AHS rules of behavior at all times. During the registration process, athletes will sign NICA’s Code of Conduct. Please review the Athlete Code of Conduct on our team website, under the Club Policies tab.
About Academics:
The mission of the Armstrong Cycle Club is to provide high school students with the opportunity to strengthen their minds, bodies and character through the sport of cycling. We want to help develop our students academically, physically and socially into mature young adults. To qualify to participate in AHS Cycle Club, each athlete must be achieving academically in a manner satisfactory to the wishes of his/her parents and the standards of the school. Failure to maintain satisfactory academics during the cycling season is grounds to be dropped from the team.
You’ll Need Some Equipment:
Your athlete will need an appropriate bike, cycling clothing and other items. Please consult with me before you buy anything so I can help you get the right gear and minimize the cost. Bicycles and helmets must be inspected and approved for function and safety, then re-inspected at regular intervals. Getting all the equipment can be challenging. Prices vary widely and much is available both new and used on the internet at discount prices. NICA has worked hard to secure significant price discounts with many retailers across the country, specifically for NICA athletes and coaches. Let me help you find what you need. See the Equipment Tab on our website.
Cost of Participating:
The costs are broken into two payments. The club dues are $125 and they happen at Registration Night. This fee covers the licensing for coaches, team equipment, website subscription, Team Registration, and most other costs associated with the team. There is a $10 fee that is paid to NICA, which is our governing body that provides insurance to clubs, coaches and athletes for all events & practices. The second payment, the race dues, can be paid on Registration Night, or wait as late as two weeks before the race. They cover the athlete registration fees for the races. Each athlete will determine what races that they will participate in. There is a required $40 registration fee and the cost of each race is $40. We encourage our team members to do all 5 races, but it is not required. We strongly encourage all racers to do at least one race. The team will do fundraising to offset many of the team costs and provide scholarships are provided to those who demonstrate need. It is our goal that no student will be denied participation due to a lack of resources.
Required Forms:
To participate on the team, riders must complete NICA’s online registration process and electronically sign all of the required documents. The athlete must be fully registered before they can participate in any team activities.
Assistant Coaches and Team Officers:
For the kids to be successful we need lots of help from team parents and volunteers. Some help with business related activities and some act in the capacity of helper-coaches.
Beginner riders need help learning to keep their bikes in top mechanical shape, advice on training and racing, and plenty of encouragement and reassurance from those who are more experienced. I am always looking for parents who would like to be trained as assistant coaches and ride leaders. You do not have to be a talented rider or racer to function effectively in this role. You’ll learn as you go and it’s a lot of fun.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I ask that riders planning to be on the team attend Registration Night with at least one parent so that paperwork can be completed fully at this time. If that is not possible, please make arrangements with me ahead of time.
Coach Bill