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Friday, July 29, 2005

The Future Of Our Sport

Thursday morning I got in a before work off-road ride down on the Minnesota River Bottoms. It's nice to get down there early because it is a 2-way trail and once the racerheads get out there it can become a little too complicated.

Anyway, I got my bottle filled and dropped in from the west end of the trail. Conditions are pretty much perfect down there right now. The Dos Niner was carving up the corners like on rails and my iPod was putting some sweet tunes in my head.

I hadn't gotten very far when I saw a little kid and his dad coming toward me on bikes. They pulled over but I slowed way down to be friendly. As I got around the corner of vegetation, I saw that the dad was none other than Scott Hebel.

Back in the day (that means late 80's, early 90's), Scott was one fast mountain biker. He had legendary duels with Gene Oberpriller at the local Midwest races. Scott was fast, and he was nice...you can't beat that.

By '92, Scott was one of the fastest Expert class riders in the nation. I watched him at the National in Vail that year as he won the Expert Class overall. He was a sponsored Diamond Back rider then.

Well on Thursday, it was just Scott and his four-and-a-half year old son out for a ride. His boy just got his training wheels off the week before and was already asking for a taste of the dirt. How sweet is that!

I'm not the only one who was excited about it. Scott was pretty pumped up to go back to the shop to tell the others that he'd gotten to ride the River Trail that morning with his son.

Kids are the future of our sport folks. Plain and simple. Teach them to ride. Take them to fun places to ride. Make it enjoyable for them. They deserve to experience what we all love.

Have a great weekend everyone.
-Kid

Posted by Salsa Kid : 11:41 AM 0 comments | permalink