A Christmas present to his wife changed his life.
The gift was a mountain bike and the change soon followed in 2011 when Ernie Reyes followed his wife, Zulema, on her new gift into the 21 miles of bike trails at Alafia River State Park.
"As soon as I got out there I fell in love with the whole scene," said Reyes, who rode with his wife that first week on his crummy old bike. "Then I bought myself a $700 bike and a few weeks after that I went up to a $2,100 bike."
Reyes, 41, has been riding ever since, sometimes seven days and hundreds of miles a week, over hills and dales and into competitions, including the Florida State Championship series featuring the best riders from around the state.
And one of the best bonuses was that his son, Ethan, started riding alongside with just as much passion.
"I don’t really play any other sports," said Ethan, who at 13, after six years of riding, doesn’t plan to compete in anything else in the future. "This is what I love to do."
Now Ethan and his dad want to infect more folks with the biking bug, first in the area and ultimately all over the state, namely in the form of a sanctioned high school team series: Mountain bike races, for instance, that would feature local public and private high schools (everyone from Newsome to Tampa Catholic to Steinbrenner and so on).
Full story http://www.tampabay.com/sports/Local-man-looks-to-develop-high-school-mountain-bike-league_164341936
The gift was a mountain bike and the change soon followed in 2011 when Ernie Reyes followed his wife, Zulema, on her new gift into the 21 miles of bike trails at Alafia River State Park.
"As soon as I got out there I fell in love with the whole scene," said Reyes, who rode with his wife that first week on his crummy old bike. "Then I bought myself a $700 bike and a few weeks after that I went up to a $2,100 bike."
Reyes, 41, has been riding ever since, sometimes seven days and hundreds of miles a week, over hills and dales and into competitions, including the Florida State Championship series featuring the best riders from around the state.
And one of the best bonuses was that his son, Ethan, started riding alongside with just as much passion.
"I don’t really play any other sports," said Ethan, who at 13, after six years of riding, doesn’t plan to compete in anything else in the future. "This is what I love to do."
Now Ethan and his dad want to infect more folks with the biking bug, first in the area and ultimately all over the state, namely in the form of a sanctioned high school team series: Mountain bike races, for instance, that would feature local public and private high schools (everyone from Newsome to Tampa Catholic to Steinbrenner and so on).
Full story http://www.tampabay.com/sports/Local-man-looks-to-develop-high-school-mountain-bike-league_164341936