Jack: An Active-For-Life Kid by Brian Matchett

My son, Jack, has truly been empowered as an active-for-life kid thanks to his involvement with Norte. At the beginning of his 5th grade year, Jack made a pact with his younger brother Max (1st grader at the time) and a neighborhood friend to ride their bikes to school every day: rain, snow, ice, or sunshine. In June of 2019, together all three accomplished their goal. Jack continued his Norte life with a Summer Bike Camp, which provided him the knowledge and confidence to become independent around town on his bike.

Participating in Norte’s Mountain Bike Team in his 6th grade year helped Jack in a different way. Multiple times a week, Norte helped him to scratch his itch for speed and technical trail riding, and to make new friends from multiple schools in the Grand Traverse area. He explored new areas and trails such as the Boardman Lake Trail, VASA Trail, The Commons, and the NMC property, all of which Jack now loves to take friends and family to go exploring, hiking, and biking. Jack has great pride in the proficiency he has developed around maintaining and repairing his own bike thanks to The Solution bike mechanics classes he has taken. He remembers well a time that he got a tree branch jammed in his bike, but with the help of the empowering information he received from his instructor, Ben, and 20 minutes of work and repair, he was able to get his bike back on the trail. When Jack is not attending a Norte class or practice, he loves to spend his free time building mountain bike trails and jumps at a local woodlot with his brothers and friends.

“Norte feels like a family to me. I’ll be out in public and I see Ty, Ben or another Norte person, and they are always there if I have a question or to have a catch-up conversation.” Thanks to his Norte involvement, Jack truly is an active-for-life kid!