SIDNEY — The Greater Victoria School Bike League (SBL) season kicked off last month with its second annual BikeJam interactive festival at Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre and the second event in the SBL season saw a local Saanich Peninsula teen take top place on the podium.
Dillon Morrison, a Grade 9 student at Parkland Secondary School took first place in the SkilzJam competition (held at Hartland) for his age group last weekend.
Earlier this year, Morrison was also the lucky recipient of the first ever Sidney Secret Santa’s Toys for Tots scholarship.
Over the next several weeks, SBL will cover a variety of venues (including the North Saanich Free Ride Park) and nine different kinds of cycling.
“The idea is not only to test kids skills but develop them,” said Lister Farrar, SBL race director.
“The competitive part is relatively low emphasis... it’s really aimed at all levels of kids.”
The bike league has been around since the 1980s during the mountain biking boom, with a surge in the last three or four years expanding to include the variety of styles.
“We all believe that being good at all these different skills carries through into the different aspect of the sport you choose … there’s lots of crossover when you get to the higher competitive levels,” Farrar said.
This is the first year in many that Parkland school has had a team in the SBL.
Visit www.schoolbikeleague.com for updated results from the SBL season.
– By Devon MacKenzie, with files from Christine Van Reeuwyk and Travis Patterson