West Virginia is known as the Mountain State, but one day, it may be known as the Mountain Bike State.
In 2024 alone, the state invested over $5 million dollars in mountain biking infrastructure, and more people are hitting the trails on two wheels than ever before – among them, Chambers College professors.
“Mountain biking is really good for kids because it’s something they can still do when they graduate from school,” said Teaching Assistant Professor of Accounting Nathan Garrett. “Most 30-year-olds don’t play football or soccer – but you can always go and ride a bike.”
For Garrett, mountain biking isn’t just about fresh air and exercise. He volunteers as a coach with the National Interscholastic Cycling Association, which organizes group rides for students in grades 6-12 across the United States. In West Virginia alone, NICA counts over 400 riders among its ranks, among them Garrett’s children.
“One of the things NICA does is try to get more girls into mountain biking,” Garrett said. “They have a camp each year for female students, that’s female-led, called Grit. I got my older daughter into that, and she met Cassie there.”
That would be Cassie Smith, WVU alumna and NICA’s West Virginia league director. Speaking with her, Garrett realized that NICA was swimming in data – about its riders, costs and fees – that it didn’t have the bandwidth to properly analyze.
He also realized that it was a great opportunity to get his students involved.
“Accounting Analytics is a really fun class,” Garrett said. “Every year, I try to do a different community-based project. This year, I was looking for a new one, and I reached out to Cassie. She was super enthusiastic and happy to give us the data.”
For Smith, it was an even bigger win: “I’m not a business person, right? But this job is like running a business. When Professor Garrett approached me and offered to help, I said yes, because having that information is very valuable.”
The Accounting Analytics students then dove into seven years’ worth of data to help NICA determine where it had come from and where it was headed. Had it grown? Was it succeeding? If so, why?
The findings: female riders and middle schoolers were driving major growth, fee restructuring was increasing participation in races, and rider retention was strong up to their fourth year.
“We’re a nonprofit, and money is a concern for us,” Smith said. “For Professor Garrett to offer to do this business analysis was really valuable. I was impressed with the time and effort the students put into it and the great ideas they had.”
Validating the nonprofit’s continued success was important to Garrett. “In terms of the impact on the community, this helps our NICA friends tell their story and recruit people. It was encouraging to them that the decisions that they made were paying off, that they were seeing increased race participation and ridership among girls.”
The project wasn’t just a win for NICA. Accounting students like Zane Freund gained important professional skills in a real-world setting.
“The NICA experience was a great opportunity to work hands-on with real data, and at the same time help an amazing nonprofit organization,” Freund said. “I studied how they have been experimenting with their pricing model over the past few years. I was able to point out how their model could be better utilized and recommended a more attractive one. It was a rewarding and fulfilling experience to help them out.”
Some students, like Accounting major Jacqueline Cooper, enjoyed the project so much that they might soon join the ranks of West Virginia’s mountain biking community.
“Working for the people of NICA helped me realize that there should be a larger importance to getting out in nature and seeing our beautiful state parks, no matter the activity,” Cooper said. “I’ve never had an experience mountain biking, but I really enjoyed helping the community who love it.”
