Ivy Clement moves across the asphalt at a mild roll. Her elbows are taut at 90 degrees, and her upper body crouches over the front wheel of her mountain bike. Ivy’s right foot pushes down on the pedal, her speed accelerates as she lifts the front wheel.
She rides on her back wheel through the parking lot between OneLove Cafe and Bike Shop and Sister Salvage & Soles, in the South Main Street business complex that once housed the Granville Lumber Co.
Once a month, the cafe holds a kid’s bike club, offering handling and technical assistance and a group ride on the nearby T.J. Evans Trail bike path. The first of these events was held in July, the same month as the grand opening of the OneLove coffee and bike shop.
On Saturday, Sept. 14, eight children – toddlers to preteens – rode around the parking lot, bumping into one another or losing balance. Parents and family members stood or sat around the edges of the lot, beaming as they watched.
Fulya Doslovich, one of four owners of OneLove, specializes in the bicycle half of the shop alongside her partner, Mike Brown.
Doslovich launched the kid’s club to provide “a healthy outlet” for Licking County children and hopes “they connect with each other as a little community, while also knowing you can just take your bike and ride, and feel better whether you are upset or anxious or anything.”
Doslovich said this session, the group was joined by a bike racer – pointing to Clement while she popped wheelies – and her coach.
Clement is a 14-year-old mountain biker and National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) racer from Columbus.
“I’d say I’m in between a pro and amateur rider,” Clement said. “I race every two weeks.”
Jen Peters, Clement’s coach, joined her at OneLove for the clinic.
“Honestly, I’m pretty excited and also really nervous, because I’ve never done something in this way,” Clement said at the clinic, where she was teaching other children for the first time.
Peters, a certified mountain-bike coach, has trained Clement – now a sophomore in high school – since she was in the sixth grade. Peters’ knack for teaching started with formal clinics for adult riders and has slowly spanned the younger crowd.
When NICA began in Columbus, Peters and a friend started one of the biking teams.
“That was what got us into kids’ coaching,” Peters said. “We would do women’s clinics in Ohio. I do some in Michigan. And then it became, ‘We’re gonna coach a kids’ team.’ Kids are really fun to work with, And it’s just kind of snowballed into a couple of years coaching the team and random pickup kids’ clinics.”
The kids were wrangled together for the start of the clinic, and Peters began with some of the basics of handling a bike.
“Keep your eyes where you want to be and want to go,” she said. “Sometimes that’s out; sometimes that’s down; it’s usually a lot of both; so the Number One rule: Look where you want to go.”
The second rule Peters explained is the optimal positioning of hands and fingers while riding, as Clement demonstrated on her bicycle. One finger hung over each brake, resting on the lever so the rider is ready for any obstacles, while the remaining fingers gripped the handle.
“Number Three is a little complex,” Peters began. “You’re pedaling your bike, right? You have your feet on your pedals, so most of your weight, no matter if you’re going uphill or downhill, is through your pedals, and those pedals should be positioned level with each other. Level pedals when coasting on a bike is a great habit to have.”
To reinforce the ideas Peters and Clement taught, the group participated in light games and activities before the actual ride.
They played limbo, riding under a foam noodle, practiced tight turns by riding alongside a circle of cones that Peters made smaller and smaller, and just rode around for fun.
When it was time to start the ride down the bike path, the group was split into three-mile and six-mile sections, depending on how long the kids intended to ride. Each group was accompanied by two adults: one leading the pack, and one trailing.
They biked three miles east on the trail, and three miles back to the shop, practicing real-time biking etiquette as they passed other riders and walkers on the trail.
Parents were invited to ride or stay back at OneLove to enjoy Turkish coffee and snacks.
When the ride concluded, the kids grabbed bottles of water and Gatorade, with a flush of red in their cheeks.
Reflecting on the ride, Peters said, “The east side is a fun place to ride, and getting kids to appreciate it at a younger age is cool.”
“I love working with kids in an unstructured environment. They either get into it or they stay into it,” she said. “I mean, my dad is 77 years old, and I still ride with him. It’s great to get parents involved.”
As Peters grabbed a water bottle, one of the little boys on her ride walked up and asked, “Will you guys be doing this again?”
“Hopefully,” Peters said with a smile.
Brin Glass and Andrew Theophilus write for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is sponsored in part by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.