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NICA coaches not only create amazing experiences for student-athletes, they create a foundation for building healthy mountain bike communities. NICA coaches change lives!
League Director
I was born and raised in Wilmington DE and grew up exploring the local parks in New Castle County with family and friends. My enjoyment for the outdoors at a young age led me to pursue running cross country at Philadelphia University where I had the opportunity to explore the Wissahickon Valley. In 2020 I returned to Delaware to begin teaching product design and mixed media art classes for high-school students. From there my cycling journey began as a way to commute to work and skip the traffic. Since then I’ve acquired a garage full of bikes and some very notable adventures! From 300+ mile bike-packing trips with friends, to coaching NICA kids through rock gardens at Brandywine Creek, riding bikes offers freedom and connection to the outdoors unlike anything else. I’m excited to grow the Delaware League in this role as we collectively aim to get more kids on bikes!
Where is all began. DDD started in 2019 with the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League and caught the NICA mountain biking bug. Moving back home to DE for 2023! Team practices take place twice a week in White Clay/Middle Run, Fair Hill, Lums Pond and Brandywine State Park.
Plan a day or two of trail work with your team. Get together in the region with other squads. Do a little trimming. Be part of a trail organization’s build project. Knock out some of your TTC hour requirements in the process. And no matter what, get in a ride too! — That first roll you take down the trail that you just improved is a great feeling.
Teen Trail Corps weekend is an opportunity to give back to the local trails you love and ride. A few hours of trail maintenance makes a huge impact in our state and county parks. This also allows us and the community to continue to access and enjoy our local trails. Our goal is for every team to log at least 1 hour of trail work on TTC Weekend. Reach out to the local park manager or volunteer coordinator to set up a trail maintenance project. It can be a simple trimming back overgrowth on the trails.
Not sure who to connect with? Email maria@delawaremtb.org and we will connect you! Head Coaches/Team Directors log Teen Trail Corps hours in PitZone.
A weekend to celebrate Teen Trail Corps and contribute to trail projects across the state Oct 26-27.
Local Trail Work Party Calendar
Email: maria@delawaremtb.org
For student athletes In the Middletown area.
Assistant Lead Course Marshal
As a Registered Nurse with over 10 years experience and a specialty in hospice care, Brie is passionate about helping others. Brie is best known for her exuberant and outgoing personality and brightly colored orange/pink hair! She is new to the world of biking due to her husband’s passion which started a little over two years ago. Traveling with her husband and 14 yr old rescue woofer Lily, is something Brie holds closely to her heart. She is an avid reader and can almost always be found with her nose in a book. Brie has been looking for a community that inspires kids and teaches them that making better life choices doesn’t have to boring! She’s known to be creative in tough situations and is always looking outside the box. She enjoys dad jokes and making others laugh! She is an advocate, a goof ball and is always ready for a new challenge! “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller
Lead Course Marshal
From the 1980’s cruising around Long Island as a kid, to the 1990’s bombing single track in the San Francisco Bay area, Stacey has always had a love for playing bikes. In 2016, during her time as a Trek Women’s Advocate and sales manager at Trek, Stacey learned of the NICA league in Pennsylvania, which had just ended their inaugural season. With her passion for getting more people on bikes, it was a no-brainer to join the Downingtown MTB team with her daughter the next season. “After being primarily a road rider for years, I was learning to mountain bike all over again. Getting to do that with my daughters was a huge bonus!” Seven plus years later and a Downingtown coach since 2017, Stacey is still just as passionate about growing the cycling community, and finally admits to liking mountain biking better than road riding. With one daughter in college, and the other focusing on track, Stacey couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come on board with the Delaware league. When not doing bike things, Stacey cherishes any opportunity to be out in nature with her husband, their two daughters, and Husky Darwin.
Join us on November 8-11, 2024 as we gather at the beautiful Fair Hill Natural Resources Area, Maryland, for a extraordinary celebration of youth mountain biking. NICA along with 11 Leagues proudly present our second east regional championships and youth mountain biking festival, bringing together our programs from across the eastern seaboard.
Founder/Co-League Director/Events Director
scotty@delawaremtb.org
Popping wheelies and jumping over friends at age 6, it’s no wonder Scotty ended up with a career centered on cycling. An ice hockey injury in his early 20s led to him turning back to bikes to stay fit, and before you knew it, he caught the mountain biking bug and was volunteering to organize and promote local events. He then spent three years as the co-race director and social media manager for Circus Bear Productions, producing the three highest attended races in the Mid-Atlantic Super Series. Professionally prior to that, he has had various jobs as a bike messenger and sales associate for Trek.
He’s been coaching since 2019 and that rewarding experience led him to bring NICA’s core values to Delaware. When he’s not racing mountain bikes, cyclocross, or annoying his 17-year old daughter, he is annoying his daughter’s friends.
Email: mike1chair@gmail.com
For student athletes in the North Wilmington area.
Chief Course Setter
Jim Martin (born Erik Magnus Lehnsherr) is a mutant with the ability to manipulate magnetic fields to his will and control metallic objects. He was a founding member of the X-Men, but left the group in 1981 to form the heavy metal band, Pantera. Pantera released four albums during the 1980s. Looking for a new and heavier sound, Pantera introduced the new singer Phil Anselmo in late 1986 and released Power Metal in 1988. Pantera is regarded as one of the most successful and influential bands in heavy metal history, having sold around 20 million records worldwide and having received four Grammy nominations. Jim likes riding and working on bikes. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Milford.
Coaching Program Manager
Pat was born in rural western Maryland where, as a child he spent hours riding through the woods and down to the drug store with friends where they would buy baseball cards and candy. “Our bikes gave us the freedom to explore.” When he moved to Delaware in 1972 he did not fit in, and the bike continued to provide mobility to be with friends from school, church and sometimes just to be alone exploring the beautiful hillsides of the Brandywine River Valley. Pat raced on the road in college and gained the confidence to take on just about anything – mountains, marathons and whatever challenge life could throw at him. After a wonderful career in Human Resources Pat got back to road racing but preferred the wooded trails near his home. “The experiences cycling has given me have been priceless. I wish that opportunity on every child.”
Plan a day or two of trail work with your team. Get together in the region with other squads. Do a little trimming. Be part of a trail organization’s build project. Knock out some of your TTC hour requirements in the process. And no matter what, get in a ride too! — That first roll you take down the trail that you just improved is a great feeling.
Teen Trail Corps weekend is an opportunity to give back to the local trails you love and ride. A few hours of trail maintenance makes a huge impact in our state and county parks. This also allows us and the community to continue to access and enjoy our local trails. Our goal is for every team to log at least 1 hour of trail work on TTC Weekend.Awards and recognition to teams who meet or exceed 85% of student-athlete participation on TTC Weekend. Reach out to the local park manager or volunteer coordinator to set up a trail maintenance project. It can be a simple trimming back overgrowth on the trails.
Not sure who to connect with? Email maria@delawaremtb.org and we will connect you! Head Coaches/Team Directors log Teen Trail Corps hours in PitZone.
A weekend to celebrate Teen Trail Corps and contribute to trail projects across the state Oct 7-8.
Email: glenn@dcbikeacademy.org
The DC Bike Academy is a Youth-Centered, Community-Based, Full-Service Bicycle Workshop, that helps young people discover the potential to transform themselves and their communities through the power of bikes.
Event day would not be possible without the incredible work of our volunteers! It takes a “village” to put on quality youth mountain bike events. Many parents and cycling enthusiasts find that getting involved with race production is a fun and rewarding experience. This is your opportunity to be a part of the middle and high school cycling movement in Delaware! We are always looking for enthusiastic and dedicated people to help with a variety of tasks necessary to the promotion of our programs.
Our inaugural season kicks off at the super secret mythical private estate of Granogue. This event will be a celebration of FUN, INCLUSIVITY, EQUITY, RESPECT, & COMMUNITY! We will have a scavenger hunt, skills zone, games, racing, riding with a heavy dose of stoke and radness.
You have a keen eye for risk management and safety always comes first. You paid attention to geography in school and on trips you use a real map. The Course Manager creates course routes for competitive and non-competitive events, and manages all aspects of course marshal points and course marking locations.
The Chief Course Marshal is responsible for incident response on the event course. This position trains and oversees Course Marshal volunteers and coordinates with them during the event. The Chief Course Marshal works with the Event Director, Medical Coordinator and Chief Course Setter to assess event venues, identify emergency access and course marshal points.
This season, we’ll be hitting Fair Hill’s trails cross-country style, as we head just south of the Mason Dixon line to Elkton, MD. One of PICL’s most versatile venues, Fair Hill was once owned by the du Pont family.
At nearly 6,000 acres, this park is host to some world-class horse facilities and steeped in history. The old-growth forests and scenic pastures make for a great race venue. Riders will be treated with fun, twisty single track separated by practice fields used by Olympic equestrians. This setting makes for some amazing adventure riding and racing, so try one, try the other, or try both.
The Pit Zone is an invitation only registration system. When your coach invites you to register with the team you will receive an invitation email from the NICA Pit Zone.
Due to the inherent risks in Mountain Biking, the NICA Coach Licensing Program has high standards for first aid training. First aid training requirements vary by Coach License Level. Click the button below for a list of upcoming NICA approved first aid and CPR classes.
No, this doesn’t mean over-the bars. On-The-Bike 101 is the first in a series of progressive skills drills for NICA coaches. You must be registered as a coach in PitZone to participate. OTB 101 and 201 is required for level 2 and 3 coaches certification.
The Trailhead is a place for stories, pro-tips, resources, and more. Much of the content you’re accustomed to seeing in the monthly NICA coaches news will now be available at The Trailhead, with the goal that it exists as a signpost: a place to go to make it easier to navigate and find the coach content you need – (see what we did there?)
Founded by Jim and Lori Martin in Lewes Delaware. Catch them at Cape Henlopen State park and practicing with the Delaware Dirt Destroyers.
UrbanPromise was founded in 1998 to seek a full life for the students in our communities. Most recently five student athletes were awarded The Trek Bicycle Pathfinders Scholarship to help bring greater diversity, equity, and inclusion to youth mountain biking by providing people of color with the bikes, gear, and resources they need to overcome historical barriers to the sport.
Email carolyn.keefe@urbanpromise.org
Email: wilburn.laura@gmail.com
Urban Bike Project is a non-profit community bike shop bringing the joys of bicycling to Wilmington residents, both youth and adults.
Operations Manager
steven@delawaremtb.org
From an early age Steven has enjoyed the freedom two wheels has to offer. From riding around the neighborhood till the lights came on to the 30+ mile rides in the woods. Riding a bike has brought Steven lots of joy that he wants to give back to the younger generation. When Scotty told him about NICA he couldn’t say no to becoming a coach. Once he heard about starting a league here in Delaware it was a no brainer that he had to be involved. #morekidsonbikes
Registration Manager
sofia@delawaremtb.org
Sofia is no stranger to being on two wheels, having grown up biking around her hometown of Goleta, CA . A Track & Field athlete in high school and in college, upon graduation she was looking for a new kind of adventure. She started tinkering with and restoring bikes, then working at Trek both on the sales floor and in the back of shop. There she was introduced to all sorts of riding disciplines including mountain biking, and was immediately hooked. She is super stoked to be a part of the Delaware NICA initiative and hopes to expand the opportunities for mountain biking fun to the community’s kiddos
Medical Coordinator
lori@delawaremtb.org
Lori has a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and has been working as an RN for 26 years. She is certified in Obstetrics and in Pediatrics.
Five years ago, Lori joined a ladies trail ride on a borrowed mountain bike, and has been enjoying all types of riding since, including road, cyclocross, gravel, and mountain biking! Lori descibes herself as “not the fastest or most technical rider”, but she loves getting out in nature and just having fun. Riding with her husband and daughter with NICA just makes it better. She is planning to be an example for coaches and student athletes, that anyone can have fun riding a bike!!
Volunteer Coordinator
vicky@delawaremtb.org
Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan till she was 15, Vicky’s first introduction to mountain biking in her late 20s had opened her eyes to a world she never realized existed. Even though it was only a leisure activity for a couple of years, it had made a lasting impression. During the last few years, Vicky has re-found her passion for the trails just like all of the others here…….but via running. She is an avid ultra-marathon runner and is currently on a quest of completing a marathon in all 50 states. She is also the founder of a local all-women trail running group encouraging and empowering fellow female runners. So when the opportunity presented itself to be involved with NICA, it was a no-brainer given the similar purpose NICA provides our local community, and also particularly because this is exactly the type of supportive community she’d like her own pre-teen daughter to get to know.
League Director and Founder
maria@delawaremtb.org
Maria has a Masters in Sociology from UCLA and a Bachelors in Political Science from Haverford College, but perhaps even more impressive is her cycling background. Maria worked at the Cadence Cycling Foundation, a non-profit working with Philadelphia and Wilmington schools to help kids develop important life-skills through the sport of cycling. Maria is a former Trek Women’s Advocate and seeks to inspire women to pursue their goals on and off the bike. In her spare time, Maria races Mountain Bikes and Cyclocross in the mid-Atlantic Region and works alongside her husband at GreshFit, a performance bike fitting and training studio, located in West Chester, PA.
Blue Mountain Resort offers up an amazing backdrop in the Poconos for a weekend of Racing and Adventuring. Many members of our PICL community are also familiar with Blue Mountain as a favorite winter ski destination and as PA’s largest downhill mountain bike park.
We’ll be adding to the bike fun at Blue with an exciting, fast cross-country course that will provide no shortage of fantastic spectating and parties in the woods. Blue also offers plenty of on-site, non-NICA Adventure options for nature and thrill-seekers, alike. Join us at our newest PICL favorite, Blue Mountain!
