hut trip magic
Every year, The Cycle Effect takes team riders who demonstrate strong leadership skills on its annual summer hut trip. For some of our riders, this was their first time participating in a wilderness trip of this scale (a hut trip is like backpacking, with a maintained cabin at the destination), and it's magical to see them bond with each other and thrive in a new environment.
These intrepid athletes biked to the hut, stayed for two nights, and participated in team building activities like capture the flag, singletrack rides, education about fire mitigation around the hut, and even a traditional drum circle! ✨ We hope to continue to provide opportunities like this to build equity and belonging in mountain biking and outdoor recreation. Here are some behind-the-scenes reflections from our Eagle Count Manager, Julia.
“Most of what we do at The Cycle Effect is FUN, but this year’s hut trip focused on fun as the value behind everything we did. Evening reflections were in response to the prompts : “What’s a FUN fact about you?” And “What made you smile today?”
The responses to these prompts were both sentimental and silly at the same time. Juli’s fun fact is that she has Italian citizenship and Fernanda’s is that she loves to sketch her feelings (she shared her drawings - they are stunning!) Aspen’s fun fact is that she is a wizard at card tricks, and Katelyn’s fun fact is that she had never been on a hut trip!
On the second night girls reflected on what made them smile during their day biking and doing fire mitigation. Sarahi smiled when she pet a tiny dog on the trail after a challenging uphill section, and Adrianna smiled when she heard encouragement from a teammate towards the end of the ride. Angel smiled when she awkwardly moved a huge branch with a teammate during the fire mitigation volunteering, and Kaelynn smiled when her team won Capture the Flag.
After three days, loads of belly laughs, games, tears, some sleep, many snacks, new friends, and a few bug bites, the girls made new, fun friends who they can’t wait to see again at the next TCE adventure!”