13 May 22 | By pp-admin | Courses, Pedal Power
Here at Pedal Power, we’ve seen the growing interest and participation in mountain and gravel bike riding by our members. And it has also brought more people to Canberra for cycling adventures.
So it’s great to see Dynamic Motivation winning the Adventure Tourism category for the 2021 Canberra Region Tourism Awards announced on 4 February 2022.
Dynamic Motivation, based at Stromlo Forest Park, delivers a range of experiences aimed at mountain bike adventure tourists. In addition to running mountain bike skills lessons and a junior skills development program, they provide a shuttle bus service to get riders up the hill so there’s more time to ride.
Dynamic Motivation owner and founder Mic Longhurst said winning the award – for the second year running – helps bolster Canberra mountain biking on the national tourism map.
“This award puts us at the table with the bigger players nationally,” he says. “Being recognised as national competitors for adventure tourism means a lot to us, and it benefits Canberra by keeping that conversation going about investing in mountain bike tourism.
“We bring about a million tourist dollars into the ACT each year, and that is only going to increase as mountain biking increases in popularity,” Mic says. “Mountain bikers want to ride, and they’re all coming to Canberra because we have such great MTB trails”.
But it’s not just for tourists – Dynamic Motivation has been providing its skills programs to Canberrans for a decade along with school holiday programs and private skills tuition.
“During school holidays, we have about 65 kids in our programs every day. We’ve become their sport – they start in our holiday programs, and soon they’re turning up every week for our afternoon rides. And it’s not just a summer sport – they’ll turn up in winter and ride under lights. They just want to ride bikes”.
Where Dynamic Motivation really shines is their ability to harness that enthusiasm in kids, and create a development pathway for them. “Kids come along to our programs year after year, and when they reach 15, they start volunteering to help out with our instructors. Before long, they’re working for us, running programs themselves”.
The formula of having young MTB enthusiasts running classes for kids is a winning combination. “Eighty per cent of our staff for school holiday programs are aged under 20. It keeps our classes fun. We have adult supervisors and mentors, but most of the instructors are young, and they connect well with the kids. That’s part of what keeps people coming back for more”.
For more information about Dynamic Motivation’s programs, visit their website here.