Twenty-four mountain bikes were donated to Selkirk Elementary School by the Outride Foundation as part of their “Riding for Focus” program on Wednesday. In the three years in which the U.S. based foundation has been operating in Canada, three of the nine Canadian schools selected for the program have been in the Yukon.

Dean Eyre, owner of Cadence Cycle and Abel Si Moussa of Cadence Cycle represented Outride and Specialized Bicycle Components at the event. Eyre explained why they were there.

“There’s a foundation run by the Specialized bicycle corporation that donates bikes to schools, and then they have a curriculum that goes along with that …. our job was basically to receive and assemble the bikes, and to deliver them, so we’re kind of acting as an intermediary for Outride, which is the name of the foundation. They supply bikes all over North America to schools, and this year in Canada three schools were chosen, and Whitehorse was one of them. So far in Canada they’ve been doing it for three years, and out of the nine schools, three have been from the Yukon, so that’s quite a high percentage of Yukon schools chosen for this.”

“I’m not sure why the Yukon does so well, maybe it’s because we have good access to trails …. Yukon seems to have caught their imagination.”

“We assembled them at our shop,” related Eyre. “It took about two weeks to assemble them. It takes about 45 minutes a bike to assemble them and make sure they’re working right.”

“They’re made by Specialized. There’s actually a model that they do especially for this, so the build kit is a little different than anything that’s in their lineup. It’s kind of a custom-built. It’s a model that they don’t even actually sell anymore, this frame model, but I think they chose it because they like the wheel size … but they did do a custom build for these. It’s called a ‘Pitch’. There’s extra smalls, smalls, mediums, and one large.”

“We’re a Specialized dealer, it’s a program that they run, so they contacted us, because we’re their local representative.”

“It’s a foundation that was started by the owner of Specialized, his name is Mike Sinyard, so he started it a few years ago.”

Before the kids received the bikes, Selkirk Elementary Principal Tamara Boiteau explained how Sinyard had ADHD, (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and discovered that every time he had a bike ride, he felt calm or in the “green zone.” That helped him concentrate on his work.

Sinyard’s son also had ADHD, and was having trouble concentrating in school. Because of this, Sinyard created Outride.

Boiteau said that the kids would be helping Sinyard show that biking and physical activity can help them learn better.

This is the second time Eyre has been involved with the Outride program.

“We did it for Pelly (Crossing) two years ago,” said Eyre.

Eyre says he enjoys being involved in the program.

“It’s great. I think it’s a really good program. It’s really cool seeing kids out on decent-quality bikes. Part of the idea is that kids will focus better in school if they get some exercise, but also it’s to learn how to ride your bike properly, how to ride safely … so it’s pretty win-win-win.”

The bikes are worth approximately $800 apiece, so multiplying that by 24 bikes, that’s nearly $20,000 worth of bikes.

“That’s quite a big investment, and that’s pretty cool that Specialized is willing to donate them,” exclaimed Eyre.

“I think it’s an awesome program and it’s really cool to see kids out riding bikes.”

Principal Boiteau explains how the bike giveaway became a reality after a long ride.

“Selkirik has applied for a grant through Specialized – Outride is their organization. This summer we found out that we were going to be the recipient of this grant that Takhini Elementary and Eliza Van Bibber (school in Pelly Crossing) received back in 2019 … they’re looking at utilizing bikes to help students support their cognitive, as well as their social emotional growth …. it was Mike Sinyard who founded it as a non-profit organization through Specialized, and to look at research through how can getting our heart rates into a certain zone through biking be able to help kids learn better. And so what we’ve committed to through Outride is a three year partnership where we get the bikes, as well as the curriculum, and we just have to supply some data through what our kid’s experiences are for three years, and after three years, the bikes are ours to do what we want and we can continue providing data for their research.”

“I’ve been kind of the lead for the last three years,” related Boiteau. “We’ve always made it to the second round and haven’t gotten any further.

“However this year – the application process was due in January of 2021– we were just waiting to hear back if we’d gotten into the second round. The second round, we just usually have to submit a video … how we’re going to institute the program, how we can support it … and from there we got an email saying ‘congratulations, Selkirk, you made it to the final round’ … Lauren Freeman (Riding for Focus program manager) … I had about a 30-minute interview with her, and she’d seen that we’d applied for so many years, and she just wanted to know a little bit more about our school, about our demographics, where our school’s located, how we can support this program, and we found out the good news through the summer that we were actually going to be one of the lucky recipients of the program.”

Boiteau said that it’s huge that the bikes tie in with the students’ curriculum.

“There’s an actual curriculum that they have to follow, and this is why our two teacher leads here, Lindsay Hutchison and Colleen Latham, had to do their training through Specialized, and the Outride foundation really wants to make sure that students are going to be safe on bikes, that they know all the basic skills … starting, stopping, gear switching, how to do a ride check, so to make sure that our bikes aren’t damaged before heading out … there’s going to be a lot.”

Needless to say, Boiteau felt pretty good about the news.

“Absolutely amazing … writing grants is sometimes a lot of time and a lot of work, and it’s something I believed in, being a mountain biker myself, and for me, there’s just so many ties for our students. We have a lot of students who have not had the opportunity to go out riding, and it’s one of those sports that’s a lifelong skill. You don’t need to be a member of a team. You just need a bike. It doesn’t have to be this $4000 one. But this program allows the kids to learn the skills, the basic skills to be able to be road-safe, and hopefully we can get them hooked on doing something that they’ll be doing for the rest of their lives.”