North Carolina Interscholastic bikers fill E-Town

ELIZABETHTOWN – Last year, Elizabethtown was the first stop on the bicycle racing circuit for the North Carolina Interscholastic Cycling League.

This year, the group has put E-town behind them for their fourth run of the season, with a theme called “Browns Creek Block Party” – April 12-13 at Browns Creek Bike Trail.

This year thousands came into Bladen County for the event and a few things have changed for this year. Although many came and camped or stayed in local motels, one father and son who train together all year long made the day trip down from Raleigh for each day of the event.

Connor, 14 who attends Leesville Road Middle School in Raleigh loved the course and the town and has been here before with NCICL. He says he’s been riding since he was 2 years old and thus has 12 years of experience under his belt.

“He learned on a strider,” his dad said. “It’s a balance bike, so that’s kind of the new school and you don’t have to use training wheels now. You actually learn how to balance first. I learned with training wheels when I grew up, but now it’s all about balance bikes. And I ride with him now. It started out just dad and then added the kid and there was a local chapter that a co-worker told me about for getting kids together and riding together and come to events like this.”

He said that there is a tremendous social element.

“It also gives them goals and keeps them in a nice clean, healthy focused activity,” he said. “It gets them out in nature and gets them away from the devices for at least one weekend.”

“I like this course a lot,” Connor said. “It’s very scenic with the perfect amount of woods and trails in and out of the open and closed areas. I did 3.8 miles today and I think I did good, taking 31^st.”

Because of the threat of rain, Friday was not used as the group’s practice day, but used Saturday for that. It was relatively warm during the day, but cooled down significantly during the evening and some of the riders who were tent camping said it got quite nippy while they slept.

A couple of friends who meet and ride together even though they go to different schools were “Cooper” and “Walter.” Cooper is from Bethany Christian School in Thomasville, North Carolina and Walter goes to Coastal Christian High School in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina.

“It was super fun and fast,” Cooper said. “I just wish they would have put out the other features like the jumps. My favorite part was getting third place.”

“I beat him by five seconds,” Walter said with a big smile. “

According to the northcarolinamtb.org website, “On 1 January 2024, the North Carolina Interscholastic Cycling League became the third chapter league within the National Interscholastic Cycling Association as a testament to its continuing growth and maturity as a youth development organization. “The North Carolina Interscholastic Cycling League is a youth development program for sixth – 12th grade students through cycling in the great outdoors. We strive to create confident and responsible young adults and to provide them with the opportunity to learn about and participate in healthy and active lifestyles.

We work to ensure that success by establishing and maintaining safe, quality youth programs around North Carolina regardless of ability level.” Again, this year, each team had their own PitZone area and it becomes a great bonding experience.

Michael Lashley, one of the trip planning organizers for the North Carolina Interscholastic Cycling League was in town with his son, David from Carey, North Carolina, last year. He had a lot of good observations about Elizabethtown and the racing in general. “We love coming to Elizabethtown,” he said. “This town opens their arms to us like no other town does. Whereas other towns may be cordial and just maybe accommodate us, this place, the people in town and the volunteers really go out of their way to welcome us. It has become a family place for us.

Last night we had a barbecue down by the Lock & Dam and there were 70 people in our group. This is such an incredible place to come and race.” Lashley’s son, David, a senior at Carey High School said, “We camped here this weekend. I slept in a hammock. Although I kind of miss the old course from a few years back, this course is good.”

Lashley who slept outside in the warm Carolina air said that he doesn’t do much training other than participating in all sports, and commented that when he rides, he puts all of his effort into it. “This is exciting because I haven’t done many races due to COVID,” he said. “It affected us by shutting down all the races. We still got to train and ride, so that was good. We just couldn’t do like, actual big events.” For a look at last year’s picture video visit the Bladen Journal online: Search through our videos for “Crankinatthecreek” March 2024.

More pictures of the bikers can be seen on the Bladen Journal Facebook page posted on April 22.