Casey Bike Club helps TFK pedal past 1,000 Kid milestone!

October 7, 2010

I’m happy to share some special news: today is what we’re calling “1K Day”, the day the combine TFK Denver and Boulder Ride programs reached the 1,000 youth participant for the year!

A young man and longtime Casey Bike Club (a Boulder middle school) participant named Sasha Price was our 1000th customer of the season!  Sasha is writing an account of his experiences with Trips for Kids over the last few seasons.  I’m looking forward to reading his thoughts on the subject and will pass them along as soon as Sasha puts his pencil down.

Read Sasha's Bio and his experiences with TFK>>

Reaching 1,000 children with our Youth Mountain Biking program was a goal we set this time last year and, quiet frankly, it was a stretch-goal we realistically hoped to achieve next year.  Due to our efforts developing our program at a greater level in Boulder and with the remarkable financial support of Pearl Izumi, REI, Specialized, New Belgium, Primal, The Herbert Parker Foundation,  and other financial contributors, we had the resources to significantly increase (we’re estimating about a 45% increase by season end vs. 2009) the number of novice youth riders we reached in 2010.   

More Ride Photos>>

Biography of Sasha Price (by Sasha Price)

My name is Sasha Price.  I am 13 years old.  I am in the 7th grade at Casey Middle School in Boulder, Colorado.  And here I am going to talk about my life:  I was born in the Republic of Kalmykia, part of Russia.  It is north of the Caucuses and south of the Volga river.  When I was 4 years old my adopted parents came and picked up me and my sister Kyra, and took us to our new home in Washington, DC, USA.  We stayed there for about a year and then moved to Annapolis, Maryland where I went to pre-school, kindergarten, and first and second grade.  My school was called the Naval Academy Primary School and I had midshipmen who were always acting like big brothers to me.  I also had high school exchange students who lived with us and were like big sisters to me.  Two of them were from Kalmykia like me.  Part way through 3rd grade we moved to Boulder, Colorado.  I was very unhappy to move because I left all my friends like Jarrod, Jacob, Quinn, Jordan, Jamie, Augie, Kevin, Louie, and Brandon.

After we moved to Boulder I went to Whittier Elementary School and made some new friends.  Also when we moved we brought our dog Lilly.  She was very old.  She was 15 and she was a Lab and German Shepard mix.  After about a year Lilly died.  Then we got a new dog on Valentine’s Day and named him Rudy, and he is a Rotweiller, Australian Shepard and Great Pyrenees mix.  I also have three cats named Izzie, Max and Elvira.  In Boulder I had a big brother exchange student who shared my room.  His name was Nikolas but we called him Nik.  He went to Boulder High School.  He was from Serbia and now he is back home with his Serbian family.  

In Boulder I like to ride my bike, ride my rip stick, play soccer, play rugby, hang out with my friends, play the trombone, and read graphic novels.  That’s my whole life.

Bike Club Experiences

My experiences in bike club have been fun.  Here are some: When I first got on the team I was very happy.  I knew everyone.  Every Thursday we would go get a bike from a professional mountain biker (Andy Brannon) and go for a ride to a park so we could practice cyclocross.  The best part of bike club is that there are camping trips where we go to a place and mountain bike every day.  When we mountain bike on the camping trips we ride hard.  Up hills (slow), down hills (fast), and around sharp corners.  One time I fell off the bike and into a cactus (oouch!).  In camp we set up our tent, cook or cleanup at each meal, eat smores, and mostly just hang out with friends around the campfire.  That’s the experiences I have had in bike club.