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FOOT Down

This classic game with endless creative progressions can help athletes learn balance, coordination, ratcheting, and ultimately, track stands. How does your team play foot down?

How to sequence games throughout your season

On and off the bikes games are great! Especially if you play the right game at the right time. The athletes will be engaged, they will have fun, and they will learn something. If we play a game before our athletes have the social and MTB skills necessary to play the game, the game can be frustrating, no fun, and potentially dangerous. Great coaches and teams understand when to play games and how to adapt them to the athletes in front of them.

Coaching with Games: PART 1

Welcome to our 3-part Coaching with Games series! We’ll highlight skills, methods, and best practices for using games with your teams.
As NICA coaches, we know that fun is an essential part of learning and whole-athlete development. Here’s how you can become a pro at COACHING WITH GAMES!

Have you ever…

Have you ever…wanted to build more community within your team? Then this game is for you! Laugh your way through a series of questions and find out what you have in common with your fellow teammates and coaches…

Roll the Dice

Create some excitement around skills late in your season once trail riding has gotten a little stale. Get creative and customize your skill and activity options!

Bike Limbo

Bike body separation, friendly competition, and a catchy bit of music make for a memorable team game. How low can you go? Have two coaches hold a long thin object such as a pool noodle, webbing, broom handle, or a rod of bamboo (for authenticity). Riders form a line and try to ride under the object one at a time.

The Impossible Climb

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Use “The Impossible Climb” at practice after you have taught all of NICA’s 101 climbing skills, and have given your student-athletes an opportunity to attempt a challenging climb that you designed. You will want to be intentional about using the name “impossible climb.” This name gives your riders permission to make mistakes and acknowledges that failure is part of the fun.

Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League participants stand in front of a mountaintop vista, looking over lake with fall colors all around. The athletes have their hands raised in a dramatic fashion.

The Essential nature of Free Play & Bikes

Many of us grew up riding bikes in our neighborhoods with friends. Maybe we built jumps or rode all the way to the local gas station for a snack. No one was telling us how to play or what to play. We made up our own rules. Research has found that these types of free play experiences foster social skills, and inherently demand some form of inclusion. They promote lifelong, intrinsic motivation for sport participation.