Dylan Hart’s eight-year-old eyes glistened as he looked at his very first bike. It was the typical cheap-first-bike from Walmart. The bold yellow color reflected like the bright sun and gave an optimistic outlook on Hart’s biking future.
“My first bike was a hardtail. It had a shock on the front and basically, it was all yellow. When you would go over rocks in the road, all you heard is *cer cra cr,” Hart said.
During that year on Christmas, Hart received his first set of small ramps. He was so excited to ride his new bike on them. He spent all summer practicing and jumping.
From then on, he got more jumps from his neighbors. The passion for this new hobby swelled in Hart’s heart. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and his bike broke after he attempted a new trick.
“I broke it because the thing that shifts your gears, broke up and flew into the wheel because I landed weird,” Hart said.
After, he moved on to a more advanced and specialized bike that suited his cycling style and current abilities. That bike had the ability to be more efficient for off-road riding.
“This [current bike] I have had for about two years. This one is for all types of stuff like riding trails and mountain biking, so I can basically do everything on it,” Hart said.
With Hart’s passion for biking, he tries to bike as often as he can. However, it has been more difficult to find time when school started up.
“I have been trying to bike every day because I do cross country racing. I am trying to get a constant training type thing going, but it has kind of gotten more difficult when school came. I would try to ride about 2-3 times a week, a solid 20 miles each day. I am shooting to try to get 20 miles in under an hour and 20 minutes,” Hart said.
He loves to go mountain biking on trails for leisure but also for competition. He regularly competes in races all throughout Wisconsin. He is a part of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) cross country team there, and with that, they go on many different rides.
“This [team] is basically an all-year thing because it starts up in the spring, but we do not start practices until really early fall. Then, we have five races throughout the year. [The races] go throughout all of Wisconsin. We cover places like Lacrosse, Lake Geneva, and Green Bay,” Hart said.
Their last race is called Trekfest, which is a race of around 900 kids from high schools all around Wisconsin. They start off with what is called a double track, which is the width of a concrete sidewalk, but on the grass. Then the path will shrink into a single track size that you can only fit one biker on.
“With the NICA, there are about 900 kids, but there are about 30-40 kids in my age group and they have three waves of that age group. So when I was a freshman I was in wave one of three, and I was getting 16th place out of 100 kids,” Hart said.
In addition to racing with NICA, he also races with WARS. These races also take place on a variety of trails throughout Wisconsin. In this competition, he normally gets first, second, or third place because there are a smaller number of kids.
“My favorite place to mountain bike is called CamRock Bike park. It is up in Wisconsin. They have a lot of big jumps and a whole bunch of super cool trails to [ride] so I really like going there,” Hart said.
“My favorite thing about biking is jumping. I love being in the air and the CamRock, they have a jump that is about as tall as me when I stand up [about 6 foot] and it has a 30-foot gap in the middle. It is a dirt ramp with rocks on it that are flat so it shoots you up into the air. There are some that are like 12 feet tall that the pros use and do triple backflips on,” Hart said.
Hart plans to continue biking in the future, and hopefully, he gets noticed by famous biking companies. The brand of bike that he currently has, called Specialized, is an example of one of these big famous brands.
“If you get sponsored by [Specialized] you get free bikes, and you get noticed a lot. Then hopefully you get to race with the pros at the pro level, and I would get to progress by myself doing something I love,” Hart said.