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Cresthill Middle School debuts new cycling studio

A unique program

BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Cresthill Middle School started the new year by debuting the rst and only cycle studio in the Douglas County School District, with 32 Stages SC3 bikes, a projection system, a sound system and fans.

Bradley Wiidakas, Cresthill Middle School physical education and health teacher and avid cyclist wanted to skew away from the traditional forms of physical education, health and wellness, so he took inspiration from his active lifestyle.

“My hope for my kids is what they experience with us, what they experience with me, would be unlike anything else they could get anywhere,” said Wiidakas. “I just started looking at di erent ways to incorporate things that could be very di erent and unique.”

When Wiidakas began working at Cresthill Middle School nearly ve years ago, he discovered many students needed something that was more bene cial to their physical education. Something that was a low impact exercise that creates a high impact result and an activity that anyone can do.

He knew he wanted to create a cycling studio.

“I’ve had this vision building in me forever and I started fundraising three years ago, for the idea, I had it all mapped out, I knew what I wanted and then COVID hits,” said

Wiidakas.

As normalcy started to come back into the world and the middle school gained a new administrator, Wildakas brought his vision back to life and for the past six months, he and his wife, Heather, have been working on the studio.

In August 2022, the Cresthill Middle School student’s, families, community members and local businesses came together to raise more than $30K to fund the cycling studio project.

“We had a big kicko event for seventh grade at one assembly and eighth grade at another assembly,” said Wiidakas. “We got massive, like social media stu going on and we raised tens of thousands of dollars to bring the studio to life.”

After searching the internet for the best bikes, Wiidakas got connected with a tness broker who then connected him to a man in Boston who recoups U.S. tness gear from mas- sive tness lines like Lifetime Fitness and 24 Hour Fitness.

“So I nd myself standing in this warehouse in Boston,” said Wiidakas. “I have three hours in which to select the bike that I wanted for our community. I then arranged for a freight for them to ship them all the way back [to Colorado].” e cycling studio is now a regular part of “that P.E. arm of our curriculum,” said Wiidakas. e studio is set up to where the teacher can instruct in front of the class or utilize tness tools such as YouTube cycling demos or Peloton coaches.

Once the bikes arrived, Wiidakas rebuilt and refurbished them. Over winter break, he and Heather spent 12 consecutive 14-hour days gutting, repainting, rebuilding and getting the studio to where it is now.

“And then the cool thing is, if we do that, it allows us to move around the studio and truly make sure that kids are t correctly on their bikes and gives us a chance to talk a little bit about technique,” said Wiidakas. Sta at the school can also take part in after-school classes as its goal is to provide students and sta a tness experience that encourages them to pursue healthy activities.

“One of our standards is to allow kids to discover what is their passion to keep them active throughout their lifetime,” said Wiidakas.

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