Teen embraces riding, repairing bikes
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.26.2009
It wasn't John Kramer's idea to take a build-a-bike class. It was his mom's.
"My mom wanted me to get out of the house and do something during the summer," the City High School sophomore says.
In the eight months since Kramer enrolled in the build-a-bike class, bike maintenance has become his passion.
Now he volunteers at the cooperative every day after school, helping to teach classes and refurbish bikes.
Kramer, 16, has also started cycling competitively.
Three days a week, he trains with El Grupo, a nonprofit youth cycling club that fielded three teams in the recent 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo mountain bike race. Kramer rode four laps at the race — a total of 68 miles.
Ignacio Rivera de Rosales is El Grupo's coach. He says Kramer needed something to get excited about.
"You could just tell he was one of those kids who was just looking for something, anything," Rivera de Rosales says. "I don't think that I even gave him the option. I just said, 'You're coming with me, kid.' "
El Grupo and BICAS are not strictly related, but there is a definite overlap.
Rivera de Rosales requires team members to take BICAS' build-a-bike course, which he teaches.
"I want these kids to have a lifelong passion for riding bikes," he says. "And I also want the kids to not only know how to ride bikes, but I want them to know how to maintain them."
El Grupo members are given their own bikes that they ride in competitions, to class — wherever. They keep the bikes until they leave the club.
"A lot of our kids can't afford the race fees, so El Grupo will do its best to pay for the fees," Rivera de Rosales says. "Sometimes the race directors will comp the kids and let them enter, which is awesome."
Kramer says he'll keep riding with El Grupo until it's time to go to college. He'll keep cycling, he says, longer than that.
"I'll keep biking for a long time," he says. "I get a thrill out of it."
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