friday1970

Sounds like exactly what my daughter did for a cheer/dance team, as part of the Young Champion of America organization. In our league, teams were formed by cities participants were from. My daughter being from Brighton, was part of the Brighton team. It would be nice even to see similar bike racing leagues, where teams are made up of members of a city or township.

TakingMyTime

Yep, this misconception that HS sports are all Ra Ra and meeting at the Dairy Queen after the game are an illusion. It's a business. You need to spend thousands in order to keep your kid active in almost any HS team sport. I honestly don't see why parents would spend that kind of money to keep their kid in a sport. I'd tell my kid to join the debating team and buy him a pocket protector.

wolfchild

I think the main reason why there are no high school races is because of lack of interest in cycling....Majority of high school students have no interest in owning a bicycle and using that bicycle, either for sport or recreation or commuting....Here in North America bicycles are still being viewed as toys and riding a bicycle is considered children's activity.

wolfchild

Every competitive sport has had steroid scandal at one time or another, and yet millions of people still show interest and continue to watch it and support it..

friday1970

Road or MTB teams? From my google/duckduckgo searchers, I've seen plenty of MTB HS teams. Only a very small handful of road cycling teams.

mstateglfr 

Sure, some places have bikes viewed as toys. And many places, bikes are seen as a recreationally fun hobby.

It's a thin line between toy and fun hobby tool since both are for fun.

But really- dont lump all of a continent into one way of thinking. Bikes are seen as many things here in NA and toy is just one.

Darth Lefty 

When the sport is big enough for only one star to break through to widespread popularity, he's the only one who matters. Sammy Sosa being full of juice didn't kill baseball, because every team has a city and a stadium and lots of public support. But coverage of golf for decades now has been like, Tiger Woods got 15th and some guy won.

Darth Lefty 

And anyhow, no one commutes to work on a football either

TheDudeIsHere

Exactly! My nephew is huge, big strong kid. Sadly, a local news caster's grandson is on the team and he donated a whole lot of money to the private school. Needless to say, he is not quite as good as many of the other kids on the team, not as big but he plays a large percentage of the time. I won't even say my nephew was real good (he was OK but better than the rich kid) but the other kids on the bench were definitely better. All about money at times.

burnthesheep

1. American football
2. basketball
3. baseball
4. futbol
5. track and field and running sports
6. the misconception that somehow liability wise cycling is more dangerous than getting permanent brain damage playing American football or having a line drive blasted back at your face as a baseball pitcher.
7. vehicular centric American culture (versus a pedestrian, bicycle, mass transit culture)

That covers it for me. Even NICA had issues with idiots in Florida trying to say the mtb teams were too dangerous to be a HS sport. Then backtracked.

I don't buy the whole "cost" thing as parents spend thousands on coaching, equipment, travel, and special leagues for all manner of other sports already.

I think mtb and cyclocross would be the place to start. Road IMO is still a bit of a niche for most American high schools. MTB and cross gets rid of the open road or parking lot permitting issues to run races.

livedarklions

A. There's no demand for it. Competitive cycling is a niche interest within the group of people who are interested in cycling.

B. All sports activities sponsored by schools incur liability, facility, staffing and equipment costs. If there's no demand, why would schools look to incur the costs, some of which are unique to road cycling?

C. Location, location, location. Schools are going to vary wildly in terms of access to suitable riding courses. Not going to see a lot of possibilities in a Manhattan school, for example.

D. Too easy for administrators to imagine the nightmare scenario--bunch of kids killed by a DUI or whatever.

E. The financial ability of students to get decent equipment for competitive activity is extremely high compared to other high school sports. The school is not going to want to take on the costs of obtaining and maintaining the equipment, and it's not clear how the "standardization" someone above proposed could be implemented without the schools buying the equipment. How do mountain bike teams deal with this?

F. Are there really a lot of people willing to volunteer their time to supervise a bunch of teen agers on a state highway or whatever? I know I'd want to get paid for something as hairy as that.

livedarklions

Oh, and BTW, there are fewer than 25 Division I or II varsity college cycling programs in the US.

cbrstar

When I went to High School bitd we had a long distance group. But both Teachers who ran it were avid cyclists who had hundreds of thousands of miles under their belt. (Both had been cycling everyday since the 70's). The problem with our group is MTB's started becoming popular and more then half the group had them. Suddenly more then half the people were unable to keep up with the other half on road bikes. It created problems and it started dying off.

The colleges and university's at the time had serious road racing programs/teams. So if you wanted to join a professional team you had to do well in school.

You need to have a overseeing organization that provides insurance etc. The one here you need at least 5 members to form a club.

ClydeClydeson

In the 80s and early 90s my home town and surrounding region had a very active high school road racing program. Crits held on parking lots and the curvy paths through a local campground, time trails, hill climbs, sprints, etc. Some teachers, including my coach, I think planned for the HS program to feed the local club, and were successful for a while. In the early 90s the MTB became the dominant discipline for young riders so the road biking went away. More kids were riding MTBs and the precious volunteer time of teachers became focused on that.

I believe there is still a MTB racing program at the schools in that area.

urbanknight

I went to a high school with about 1600 students and was the ONLY one who raced (or even rode as far as I could tell) road bikes. I started a mountain bike club which drew something like 12 members, but I think half of them just wanted another appearance in the yearbook because only 5 or 6 of them ever came out to a ride (which had to be "unofficial" and after school hours for liability reasons). I was thrilled years later when I saw a high school league starting up, but it's still a stretch for most schools to gain enough membership to justify their own team.

Cycling just isn't that popular here.

aplcr0331

I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of kids under 18 would think road cycling is lame (if they thought about it all).

We're a small minority of an even smaller minority (regular cyclists). There's just no interest there.

But take heart....you are still allowed to absolutely LOVE-LOVE-LOVE something that the majority of people around you, while not actively disliking it, might view it as nothing more than a lame hobby at best. It's OK to enjoy something and not try to get everyone else involved in it. We don't need individualized Mormon missions to knock on doors with our Steel Lemonds trying to convert the blind.

A Survey in the UK found that 47% of kids aged 11-17 said parental worries prevented them from cycling/cycling more. You'd have a better chance at a High School Gravel team. As others have mentioned MTB Teams abound. We have a well attended High School league in my area (my club "sponsored" ten kids for the year...and we're a road cycling club).

Ain't gonna happen.

Side note: There's a US High School Bowling National Championship. The "Bowling Industry" provides 6,000,000 dollars annually in scholarships to High School Bowlers.

https://usbcongress.http.internapcdn....ool_Guide1.pdf
USHSBF - ABOUT US page for the United States High School Bowling Foundation (U.S. High School Bowling Foundation)

So...Bowling yes. Road Cycling...nope.

Face it. Our hobby is pretty lame for the most part. I know I love it...but the VAST majority of people think what we do is alien at best and contemptible at worst.

"Get Off The Road Lance!"

J Palmer Cass

As an aside, we should have less school sports, not more. Let kids who want to play a sport do it on their own and confine school to scholastic activities.

big chainring 

Look at bike racing in general. Participation in the Junior category is minimal. In the mid 70's when I was a Junior racer, weekend events would attract 30-70 Junior racers. Super Week 100+. Is there anywhere in the country where Junior cat. racing is big now?

caloso

My observation is that kids are racing MTB and CX. It's a great atmosphere and (pre-COVID) there were always taco trucks at the start/finish. What's not to like?

Eric F 

I completely disagree. Club/travel sports are typically pretty expensive. School sports offers an opportunity for students to play a sport with significantly less cost. I've also seen many cases where students start fresh in a new sport that they would not have played outside of school. Club/travel sports teams typically include players from a wide area, and often don't interact outside of team activities. Having teammates that you also go to school with is a different level of camaraderie. There's a different mindset when you are representing your school.

Eric F 

I agree 100%.

J Palmer Cass

I didn't mean club or travel sports but unorganized neighborhood play. I don't think it should be the job of the school system to give kids a place to play sports and that the efforts and money spent on sports would be better spent on education.

caloso

That's been my experience with my kids.

Eric F 

There are a lot of valuable lessons learned in playing team sports. Also, I've seen more than a few kids whose love of their sport, and the minimum GPA requirement to play, has given them the motivation to succeed academically.

Phil_gretz

There is a lot of money wasted in public education. Sports is not one of the waste categories, in general.

Why is the OP asking us? Is the issue is sanctioning? Why not ask USA Cycling?

They're in Colorado Springs for a reason.

EDIT: I said "a lot". I meant to say that government education has lost its way several times over the last 60 years, and now has little hope of ever finding it's way back to reality.