Meet The National Youth Bike Council

by BikePGH Staff Contributor – Ted King-Smith

Young people across the country grow up riding bikes and while some may lose the passion as they get older, others keep or even regain the joy of cycling into young adulthood. Although issues of transportation justice and mobility justice are keenly experienced by young people, their voices are often missing in advocacy conversations. As well, young people are often not represented by the bicycle industry which typically markets to older or more affluent consumers. To address this lack of representation, The National Youth Bike Council was formed in 2017 to give voice to young cyclists and, according to their mission statement: 

We noticed a huge lack of representation…

To work toward their mission, the National Youth Bike Council hosts The National Youth Bike Summit. According to their website, the Summit is, “a 3-day national conference bringing together students, educators, advocates, researchers, policymakers and community leaders in order to: gather and share ideas; give youth a voice, and; encourage civic engagement and advocacy. Through workshops, presentations, keynote speakers, discussion, and visioning, we transform dialogue into action.”

The 2024 summit will be held near Allentown, Pennsylvania on June 14-16th, 2024. 

The National Youth Bike Council also creates a number of projects getting young people involved in biking by hosting rides, bike repair events, and a bi-monthly Chatcast to talk all things bike-related with fellow young cyclists. 

This spring, at The League of American Bicyclists National Bike Summit in Washington D.C.,  I met National Youth Bike Council President, Joshua Funches, and fellow member and his brother, Lot Funches. I  was fortunate to chat with them again this month about the council and how young people can get involved and how bike advocacy groups can best support them. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Joshua, Lot, and the other members of the council participate as volunteers in addition to school, work, and other activities. When asked about how he first got involved, Joshua says, 

I got involved, basically, through the Youth Bike Summit.  It’s funny enough–It’s almost coming full circle. I got involved first in organizing the Youth Bike Summit, but with the council, we had the idea that “what if we could take all the young people into bikes around the country and make one big national council and get rid of all the adults?” We’re not there yet, but that was the idea at first and that’s kind of where it started! We realized there were so many passionate young people in the room. There was so much energy. There was so much opportunity. We didn’t even know that other young people around the US were just as interested in the bicycle as we were. As a tool to do whatever it was that they were trying to do from advocacy, to fun, to sport, or they’re just using it for art.  All those purposes and opportunities presented themselves at the Youth Bike Summit and it was like at that moment we just didn’t want to get rid of all of the energy and all the excitement. We just started it as a group chat and then it went to an email list and then it was some calls once a month and it just kept growing from there. During the pandemic, we got our 501c3. So, yeah, it was just a causal snowball.

“What if we could take all the young people into bikes around the country and make one big national council and get rid of all the adults?“

The Council, according to Joshua is “small but mighty” with eight council members spread across the country, a board, and a steering committee that helps plan the Youth Bike Summit. 

Lot mentioned how the passion for cycling has made a positive impact on his life and others’:  “I meet these different people and hear their stories about cycling and how cycling has changed their lives, or helped people who have illnesses. It’s helped them recover from illness, or just cope.  So, like hearing stories throughout the years about that and seeing how cycling really can impact someone’s life, especially through covid, has definitely empowered me to stick with this work as a volunteer.”

One recurring theme from our conversation was a lack of representation by young people in the bike industry or bike advocacy. Although excitement for biking is high among youth, opportunities to get involved are scarce. As Lot says regarding going to the National Bike Summit, “I did not see a lot of people who are as young as me (there) and whether that’s due to interest or invitation or whatnot. I feel like a lot of times when we go out and do this advocacy work, people are happy to see us doing it because it’s not common and I feel like that’s a barrier.” When asked about opportunities to bring in more young people to the industry or advocacy, Lot replies frankly, “give them a job.” “I feel like that’s a good place to start when it comes to advocacy work, by inviting young adults into the cycling community, and show them how to make a career out of it.”  

To echo this point, Joshua cited examples of businesses providing internships or apprenticeships to get more young people involved or schools or local governments involving students in the design and implementation of infrastructure projects to make the surrounding streets safer. According to Joshua, these entry points are not common enough, “where’s the funnel?  There’s no funnel and I can’t stress it enough that we need to do better with that. Because a lot of young people are looking other places and they’re finding other things that are more compelling.” 

In addition, Lot points out that although there are entry-level positions for youth in bike shops, many are kept out of roles in advocacy due to a lack of educational credentials or job experience that older candidates have. 

When asked how larger bike advocacy groups can help the council and the summit progress, Lot says its paramount that we keep “building the network”, connecting like-minded organizations, and sharing resources and that we shouldn’t be working in silos. Although allied organizations want to support and highlight the great work that the council does, one tension that becomes apparent is that larger organizations must still respect the youth-centered space that the council has created. When asked about inequities that youth face in cycling, Joshua points out the economic barriers many youth face to getting into cycling and that since many youth can not afford a car they should at least be able to afford a decent bike. Joshua also thinks that age restrictions on e-bikes are “mind-boggling” and that many companies and organizations seem unwilling to work with youth under 18. 

Regarding how to connect to young people, Joshua had three suggestions, “events, events, events!” According to him, youth are unfairly characterized as being unmotivated when in reality they are not being given opportunities, 

There’s this stigma that young people don’t go outside, and we can talk about the many reasons for that, but if there’s a “reason to go outside” or more reason to go outside. Specifically, things where the bicycle industry or adjacent industries can provide it when it comes to camping or whatever.  As many events as possible that get these young people together and start creating the community, that’s what we want to see, or joint events between different organizations.

One strategy that Joshua suggests is making rides and events as approachable as possible to young people, for example, providing free food or mechanic support to lower the barrier to entry. Another is connecting with influencers that have strong youth followings. Getting the right influencers involved in an event or campaign can lead to strong youth participation.

Both Joshua and Lot highlighted the importance of regular bike rides in building a strong community. According to Lot, “Those are the kind of rides I like. You build camaraderie, you build community, you build connections, and those connections can last you a lifetime. Those kinds of rides.  It’s those kinds of rides that help me. It’s my safe space and a reminder that the cycling community is really a whole big family.”

“Those are the kind of rides I like. You build camaraderie, you build community, you build connections, and those connections can last you a lifetime. It’s my safe space and a reminder that the cycling community is really a whole big family.“

Joshua adds that organizations don’t just need to create events that are marketable to young people, but they need to include their voices as well and be clear about how young people can get involved, 

There’s not enough clarity. So I would say to the organizations that are willing to help with youth advocacy to provide as much structure up front as possible for young people to get involved in. For example, organizations, like where I came from, Neighborhood Bike Works (in Philadelphia), create youth advisory councils.” Other organizations should follow suit and start laying the groundwork to empower youth in their communities. Don’t wait for the community to have a young person create something like that, even though some communities do, I would say, start internally and then don’t give up, just refine it. So provide a structure because young people are surrounded by structure all day.

As we wrapped up our conversation, Joshua summed up how our wider community can best help The National Youth Bike Council, “we need space, support, and time” and that everyone interested should sign up for their newsletter and follow them on social media National Youth Bike Council on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Also, check out The National Youth Bike Council Chatcast on Instagram Live to hear what youth leaders in cycling are up to. Are you a cyclist who’s under the age of 24? The National Youth Bike Council wants to hear from you! 

The BikePGH staff and board are committed to becoming an anti-racist organization. We aim to educate and inform ourselves and supporters, listen to the experiences of marginalized communities locally and nationally, and work collaboratively with experts and advocates to address transportation inequities in Pittsburgh.

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Since we, as an organization, intend to expand our knowledge and understanding of the inequities that exist in transportation, we thought we’d bring our supporters along with us. Our Transportation Justice Learning Series is for anyone who wants to actively listen to and learn from the lived experiences of marginalized people in Pittsburgh and hear from experts in fields, directly and indirectly, related to transportation. Through listening and intentionally soliciting feedback, BikePGH can further identify the areas that our work has fallen short.