Trips for Kids

Doug Brown recently decided it was time for a change. He was dividing his days between working and riding his bicycle, and he still wanted to do both, just not in the for-profit sector anymore.

“At the end of the day, I needed to feel like I was making a contribution,” he said.

At 59, the Tanglewood resident had spent nearly half his life in the insurance business, but he gave it up to give back to the Birmingham community. And when he did, he took his bike with him.

Brown is the founder of Trips for Kids Birmingham, a nonprofit organization that loans bicycles and safety gear to children in the Birmingham area and teaches them to ride trails at Oak Mountain State Park. The group, which held its first ride in June 2013, organized six events last year. Now, Trips for Kids is gearing up for another season of outdoor fun scheduled to kick off in March.

Brown took a roundabout route to founding the organization. He first went back to school to earn a master’s degree in public administration, all the while keeping his eyes open for jobs in the nonprofit sector. He waded into the work by volunteering with environmental protection groups but soon stumbled across an article on Trips for Kids.

“With a rising obesity rate in Birmingham, it seemed like a good fit,” Brown said.

He first reached out to Trips for Kids’ national headquarters in California to see if they felt Birmingham was a good location for a chapter. The organization has more than 80 chapters nationwide, and they were excited to add another, Brown said.

Brown sought support from corporate sponsors and local bike shops to get the group off the ground, and he reached out to the local cycling community through the volunteer organization Birmingham Urban Mountain Pedalers. Members of BUMP, who help maintain the trails at Oak Mountain, agreed to hold riding lessons and lead rides twice a month. With that, all that remained was putting bicycles in children’s hands.

“I kept looking for a hurdle I couldn’t get over, and I never found one,” Brown said.

Through the organization, students ages 10-15 from inner-city Birmingham are invited to join volunteers on the trails as a reward for improving their attendance records and grades. They meet Brown and other volunteers at the park, where the first order of business is to complete a riding lesson.

Volunteers, certified ride instructors who are mostly members of BUMP, first fit students with helmets and bikes. After that, the instructors teach kids what gears are best for going up and down hills and — most important — how to use the brakes.

Brown said the organization took 65 students, some of whom had never been to a state park, on a ride around Oak Mountain’s Lake Trail last year.

“We want to show them exercising is fun and how nice it is to spend day outside,” Brown said. “Some of the kids start off a little scared and some might have little bit of attitude, but the walls come down once they’re out on trails.”

Trips for Kids riding instructor Eddie Freyer, a Hoover resident, described a “total shift” that occurred in the students during the organization’s first ride in June. He said he watched a group of boys show up acting “too cool for school” and soon turn into enthusiasts.

“I kept thinking it was a tough crowd,” Freyer said. “But we went through skills and got them out on trail, and at some point heard this giggling behind me — from all of them. I saw them completely change right there in front of me. They could not stop laughing and smiling the whole way.”

Brown said Trips for Kids is aiming to hold two rides per month beginning in March. He is also looking to expand Trips for Kids’ other component — a bike re-cyclery. The organization would accept donations of unwanted bicycles and use them to teach students how to “wrench,” or repair and refurbish them.

Brown also expects to see mountain biking expand in the community as a whole in 2014, and he hopes Trips for Kids will play a role. In 2012, Freyer was one of nine in the area certified by the International Mountain Biking Association and has since pursued the formation of competitive mountain biking leagues for Alabama high school students.

Brown said he believes that students who come to love the trails through Trips for Kids could then join Freyer’s competitive league.

“It gives them a new group to associate with,” Brown said. “When kids come off the trails, they’re jacked up. Ninety percent want to ride again. Hopefully this year we’ll have everything in place to help them do it.”

For more on Trips for Kids or to learn how you can help, call Brown at 908-0564 or visit tripsforkidsbirmingham.org. For more on the potential of a competitive high school mountain biking association in Alabama, visit facebook.com/alabamamtb.