Home

10%

Jason Whorton

The Humble Son

By InnerVoice

May 24^th, 2019

Tulsa is home

I grew up in the Tulsa area and attended high school in a rural community west of the city. I played a lot of different sports - soccer, baseball, basketball and football - and I began riding bicycles and motorcycles at an early age. Growing up, I spent a lot of time outdoors. I bought my first mountain bike in college and would ride it around town and on the local mountain bike trails. After college, my wife and I moved to Dallas, where I continued riding, and competed in Run, Bike, Paddle adventure races, 5Ks, and even a marathon. After eight years in Dallas, and two children, we decided to move back home. Tulsa will always be home; it’s where I was born and raised, and it’s a friendly, caring community with limitless growth opportunities. Plus, we have great weather, world-class parks, and the city has embraced cycling. We often say, “Tulsa is the cycling capital of the Midwest.”

When we moved back to Tulsa, I knew I wanted to get involved in serving our community and began volunteering for non-profits and coaching youth sports. The next spring, I flew to Seattle to attend a team-building conference with my employer, AT&T. At the conference, we began our days with a community service project and spent the afternoons in work-related meetings. One of our projects involved building 50 bicycles for children in need. We didn’t know it at the time, but all the kids that were receiving the bikes were in the lobby of our hotel. They came running in once we were finished and as you can imagine, they were ecstatic! At that moment, I knew I had found what I wanted to do for the Tulsa community. In April 2008, I established Humble Sons Bike Company, and we gave our first 22 bikes away that Christmas. It’s been incredibly impactful, and not just for the kids – our volunteers often say that it’s just as rewarding for them as it is for the kids.

bike club

In 2014, a friend connected me with a guy by the name of Mike Wozniak. Mike had an idea to build a bike course on some vacant land just north of downtown Tulsa. He wanted to repurpose this under-utilized space as a venue for the community to ride bikes. Mike spoke to Gary Percefull, a member of the Tulsa Public Schools Board, about his idea. Gary wasn’t so sure about a bike course, but knew the principal of nearby Emerson Elementary and suggested they partner to start a Bike Club instead. The principal loved the idea and was onboard immediately. That’s when I got involved - I was known as 'the guy that had access to bikes'. By this time, I had given away thousands of bicycles and helmets but rarely had the chance to interact with the children receiving those bikes. The thought of kids learning how to operate a bike safely and receiving mentorship opportunities felt like a perfect evolution for our non-profit.

So, we started Bike Club.

I provided Mike with 20 bikes and helmets that first year, and we’ve expanded to new schools every year since – we’ll have over 20 clubs next year in Tulsa Public Schools alone. We believe that learning to ride a bike is a life skill that every child should experience. It boosts confidence and self-esteem, opens minds to alternative transportation, and builds a foundation for a healthy lifestyle.

It didn’t take long for us to notice that some of our Bike Club students had real talent handling their bicycles and could ride a little faster or further than the others. We thought to ourselves that these kids should be racing. Around the same time we launched Bike Club, Tanner Culbreath, an avid cyclist and cycling event promoter, began a youth riding group organized under the banner of Oklahoma Flyers.

Much like Bike Club, Oklahoma Flyers provides youth an opportunity to ride and race, access to equipment, and encourages members to be good citizens on and off the bike. A couple of years ago, Humble Sons Bike Company partnered with Oklahoma Flyers to provide a competitive outlet for our Bike Club students to pursue. We now have student-athletes competing in national cyclocross events, NICA league mountain bike races, and criteriums such as Tulsa Tough.

Malachi Jackson is one of several students that have risen through the ranks of Bike Club to compete in multiple cycling discipline events. In elementary school, Malachi excelled at traditional ball sports like football and basketball, but it wasn’t until he was offered a chance to be in Bike Club that he realized the power of two wheels. As with any new sport there was a learning curve, but the competitor in him tackled those challenges head on. Now, Malachi is an example for other up-and-coming riders and he can be seen spinning around town in his red, white and blue kit.

Our bike family

Our team at Humble Sons is seasoned, and has a unique set of skills that complement each other. Gary ended up stepping down after 16 years on the Public Schools Board, and is now our Board President. Susan McCalman, the Development Director for the organization that received our first bicycle, has also retired and is our Board VP. Justin Langston serves as our Treasurer, and is the Operations Director for Two Men and a Truck, who have helped us deliver thousands of bicycles. Lucy Dolman, former Tulsa Parks Director and mountain bike trail development collaborator, covers Secretary responsibilities. Gabrielle Platt rounds out our Board of Directors; her son Xavier participated in our first Bike Club and she now trains as a hand cycling para-athlete. Every person in our leadership group has been involved in our operations long before they were asked to serve. They’ve believed in the mission for years and we couldn’t be luckier to have them in our bike family.

JUSt Show up

Starting a non-profit isn’t easy, and we’ve faced lots of challenges over the journey. Early on it was raising awareness and money to purchase bicycles. Our friends and family were crucial in supporting our initial bike giveaways. As we continued to grow, we started to face different challenges. For instance, we were involved with delivering over 2,200 bicycles last year and the need for a robust supply chain is critical. Without the help of generous funders, community volunteers that rally to assemble bikes, and partners like Two Men And A Truck, delivering around 200 bikes per month just wouldn’t be possible.

We also work with groups like NewSolutions, who provide safety vests, and Safe Kids Tulsa Area donate helmets for every Bike Club student. We’re lucky that as we continue to face new challenges, we find new community members and partners to help us answer them. But the key component to our success is, hands down, our volunteers. They make ALL of this work possible – young people need to develop new skills and have a positive influence from mentors that encourage them to be their best.

Something I’ve learned along the journey is the power of showing up. Just show up, be consistent, develop relationships, and test the waters with simple demonstration projects that can be tweaked as you learn. For larger initiatives, I often remind myself, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Make a list and start scratching things off. Building programs, raising dollars, recruiting volunteers, planning events – they all take time, and they’re built on relationships, and those relationships are strengthened when you show up and do what you say you’re going to do.

Humble Sons Bike Company continues to evolve and is busy working on improving volunteer training, expanding classroom opportunities and supporting out-of-school time. Whether it’s developing bicycle physical education curriculum, helping the district open a high school bike shop, or operating spring, summer and fall break camps, you can bet you’ll find them somewhere around town sharing their love for cycling with the next generation.

Footnotes

Words by Jason Whorton, Photos by Ansel Dickey and courtesy of Humble Sons Bike Co., Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc.

Follow Bike Club

FootNotes

Words by Jason Whorton, Photos by Ansel Dickey and courtesy of Humble Sons Bike Co., Edited by Cody Royle, Published by Travis McKenzie, Copyright NTSQ Sports Group Inc.

Colin O'Brady

Jason Whorton

The Humble Son

FootNotes

No Human is Limited

I'm Here To Win

My Incredible Journey

The Most Interesting Man In The World

Season 3

My Desire To Be Better