New Track

By Leah Tuckwiller | Photos by Josh Baldwin, Josh Edwards, Ben Isenberg, & Courtesy of Hammer Cycles

Out in Greenbrier State Forest, the click and turn of gears and spinning wheels echo through the hillsides. When a voice rises, here and there, over the hiss of tires on trailand, the rattle of metal bike frames shaken by uneven terrain, over the call of the birds and the rush of the wind and the leaves, it sounds young. Swept up in the thrill of the ride, carried on the mountain breeze.

Youth cycling is a relatively new sport to the West Virginia hills—at least as far as formal organization goes—but it’s taken the kids by storm, especially in the Greenbrier Valley.

The Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders youth cycling team is coached by Max Hammer (yes, as his website clarifies, that is his real name) and directed by Sarah Elkins, his wife. The duo started the team when Hammer’s lifelong love of cycling drove him to get involved and bolster the existing community of cyclists that thrives on West Virginia’s expansive Appalachian playground.

In the spring of 2020, as the weather warmed and the world emerged from a different kind of winter hibernation than usual, it seemed everyone collectively came to re-embrace the joy of outdoor recreation. Southern West Virginia became a haven for people from up and down the East Coast and even further afield as people began to quit the cities and head for where the population density dropped off sharply. For newcomers, the area was a tonic; for those of us who’d lived here all along, it was a no-brainer.

After gaining a foothold in the cycling community through forming the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders youth mountain biking team, Max Hammer decided the time to open a bike shop was immediately before the world took a sharp turn and became a very different place.

“Initially, I just wanted to coach kids and bring them into the sport, but then it became obvious that we really didn’t have the resources around here to support the youth mountain biking and the growing community,” Hammer says. “So I decided to do my part and take the risk as we opened. It was during the COVID shutdowns, so it was unclear [whether or not] bicycle service was a vital industry that was protected and couldn’t be shut down here in West Virginia. It was unclear, so I didn’t really know if it was legal to open a business – or a good idea.”

Hammer describes his concern about social media and those who would take to the public forum of the Internet and scrutinize the ins and outs of any business who went forward too recklessly, but Hammer’s caution in the earliest days and the push for outdoor recreation in those times seems to have won out.

“I operated behind papered windows for two and a half months and then tried to put the vinyl on the windows,” he recalls, “and people started streaming in the door. So I was like, ‘oh, guess we’re open!’”

It’s a scenario that makes sense – the outdoor afficionados were in West Virginia the whole time. Once the weather broke in the spring of 2020, there were more ways to get outside safely and stimulate body and soul once more. “Plus there were all the people that were told not to go to work, so they suddenly had a little more free time,” Hammer adds. “So ‘go outside and do things’ was a big thing. And then just [having] the actual ability to do it, to get out of the house instead of going to the office [made a difference].”

Youth cycling in the Mountain State is organized through the West Virginia Interscholastic Cycling League (WVICL), which is affiliated in turn with the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA), based in California and spread across the country. The organization prides itself on integrity and inclusivity, as well as holistic well-being for young cyclists between 6th and 12th grades.

In the Greenbrier Valley, the youth cycling team began when Hammer and Elkins identified a need in the community. As an avid biker himself, Hammer felt driven to coach students in the sport he has loved since he was a child.

“Youth cycling in West Virginia started a year before we started a team. A friend of mine who I was actually competing and racing with, Cassie Smith, she started the league up in Morgantown and suggested that I start a team,” Hammer explains.

After a period of careful decision (and, Hammer admits, maybe a little dragging of feet), that’s exactly what he did, with help from his wife, Sarah, and from Clay Elkins. They began with a team of five – one rising sixth grader and a few other recruits – in the first season, and the team has only grown since then.

 These days, the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders Youth Mountain Bike Team (as they’re listed on Facebook, where there are abundant photos and invitations to come out, get involved, and join the team) are far more numerous, and interest meetings occur each year before the season gets started—there are always students aging into the sport, and new interest is sparked each year among kids who may never have tried the sport before.

NICA focuses on building strong bodies and minds as well as strong bonds between participants. With single-track rides, infield games that promote safe biking skills for the trail, and more—including equipment sourcing for kids who may not have their own bikes available or who may be uncertain about the sport—NICA’s mission is to build strong character in youth cyclists and develop a sport that develops mind and body.

Drive westbound on Route 60 out of Lewisburg—but don’t go too fast. At the top of the hill, right next to iconic local favorite Jim’s Drive-In, Hammer Cycles features a range of bikes and gear, service, and tailored advice on your next mountain, gravel, road or electric bike that may suit your needs, with varying degrees of bells and whistles.

Hammer originally went into business in White Sulphur Springs, opening the shop downtown at the same time as the city began to see a resurgence in local business as restaurants, breweries, and retail shops started to pop up on Main Street. Despite his worries about the early-COVID opening date, the community showed up for Hammer Cycles from the beginning, and the lack of support in cycling that Hammer had identified in the area quickly turned around.

“It’s like a time warp,” he says of the time since he first opened White Sulphur. You know what they say—time flies when you open a business and immediately start to build a community.

  Two winters ago, Hammer moved his operation from White Sulphur to Lewisburg. Though the move took him slightly further from trail access in Greenbrier State Forest and the Greenbrier River Trail, the move has been a success. He says the new Hammer Cycles location is conveniently close to Lewisburg Elementary School and commuter routes in downtown, and Hammer’s community still knows where to find him.

“We’re pretty established and settled into it,” he says. “Our landlord, Lance Syner, undertook a massive remodel of the space to make it suitable as a bike shop in early 2024 as we made the move, and this year we’re pretty much dialed in.”

Nineteen miles of singletrack trail stretch through Greenbrier State Forest—something for every skill level. The forest spills down on either side of Kate’s Mountain, and teems with life in the summer and fall seasons. It may not be the largest state forest in the country, but it’s an outdoor recreation paradise.

A short ride from Greenbrier State Forest, the Greenbrier River Trail starts in Caldwell and snakes its way up along the river toward Cass, 992 feet of slow elevation gain over the course of its 78 miles (That’s about 12 feet per mile—the trail features a few “new” inclines after storm damage in the last couple of decades, but originally ran at a consistent one percent grade all the way north, and much of it still does so to this day.

In White Sulphur Springs and in Lewisburg, a biking commute is a simple thing—the landscape rises and falls but gently, traffic tends to be calm, and residential areas are close to both jobs and recreation.

These days, the Valley is home to not only Hammer Cycles, the Hellbenders youth team, and biking meetups among friends—in 2023, the Greenbrier Valley Off-Road Biking Association was formed, and has been encouraging community rides and advocacy for the sport. Perhaps not surprisingly, Hammer and Elkins are both board members.

The organization takes the community Hammer speaks of to a new level, not only bringing cyclists together for events like social rides and networking, but for public service projects and trail building classes for volunteers, like one held this May in cooperation with the Brad and Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative at WVU.

In short, the Greenbrier Valley might be the perfect place for a biking community, and if Hammer felt any lack in support for that community when he opened Hammer Cycles, it certainly can’t be felt today.

The thing about biking, which Hammer reiterates again and again, is the community that cyclists build, out on the trails or waving at cars that move over to give them space on the road. The kids on the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders respect their teammates and opponents alike—cyclists on the River Trail calling ahead to hikers and dog parents.

Hammer talks about his inclusion in this community, and his longtime desire to engage with it from a young age: “I’d always wanted to open a bike shop. Since working in them in college, I’ve been a cycling enthusiast all my life, just riding and racing.”

That riding and racing career even led to the 1990 World Championship in dual slalom, and onto some of the toughest terrain in the world alongside other incredibly talented riders. It’s a far cry from what he describes on his website as “first rides … made of castoff parts and junkyard bikes welded together by his older brothers,” and going to “any length to keep up with the big kids, hucking his bike off any ramp they suggested.” But it’s all a vital part of how Max Hammer came to find himself in the Greenbrier Valley.

He tells the stories fondly—despite life developing in new and exciting ways. “I got pretty serious about it for a while, and then kids happened and family and that sort of thing, all that responsibility, it kept me risk averse during that period of life,” he says. “Then as my kids were getting a little older and life was a little more stable, I decided that it was time to take a risk, and so went ahead and started pushing forward towards that goal.”

It was at that point that he really began working toward that dream of his own shop, but, as he mentioned, the community support wasn’t quite ready-made in the early days. The Greenbrier Valley had seen a few bike shops in the past, but making them last had so far proven easier said than done.

“It was terrifying thinking of all the bike shops that had opened and closed before in this area and had to figure out what it was that I could do to avoid opening and then closing,” he admits. “So I came up with a strategy—and really it’s been trying to create a culture in this area and develop a sport. I started with the youth mountain biking team a couple of years before we opened the bike shop.”

His methods are working. The Hellbenders team is thriving and vibrant. and a growing number of cyclists in the area are getting involved with the sport, and with their neighbors.

Big smiles and loud whoops accompany the bending of tiny branches and the crunch of loose mountain dirt under tires. In cross country mountain biking, you’re covering lap after lap on a set course. The races get faster and faster, longer and longer as the kids get older and gain more experience.

“We’re aiming for sixth graders to have a race that’s between 30 and 45 minutes and similar for the rest of the middle school, but each grade goes faster and has more distance, and then the high school races are a little bit longer than that,” Hammer says.

The team competes across the state throughout the school year—practices start in the summer, and though the sport isn’t officially in the schools in the Greenbrier Valley, the start of the school year heralds the beginning of youth cycling season.

“Every other weekend for 10 weeks there’s racing,” he explains. “It’s independent from the schools, but it’s kind of a fall sport.”

Teams travel across the state of West Virginia to battle it out for the duration of the race. The competition is fierce, but to hear Hammer tell it, there are no hard feelings, no unsportsmanlike conduct.

“It’s pretty amazing,” he says of his team. “It’s one of the few sports that the whole family gets involved in. Where in most of our stick-and-ball sports, the parents are on the sidelines and sometimes there’s a problem yelling things at refs and the culture is just not there.”

The Hellbenders, and other teams across the state, apparently dodge this problem easily. “This is a very community-oriented culture, so everyone’s cheering for everyone else’s kids on the side of the race course, and the outcomes are really up to each individual, not whether the team’s having a good day or whatnot,” Hammer clarified. “It’s really supportive. Kids will lay it all out on the racecourse and battle with somebody for an hour—and then cross the finish line and hug.

“Going to the next race, the kids are all excited to see their friend that they made last weekend.”

That, as much as anything, is what Hammer talks about striving for when he opened Hammer Cycles – not just selling and repairing bicycles for the Greenbrier Valley, but starting from the grass roots to foster and grow this kind of encouraging, supportive community culture in the area, among kids and adults alike.

The culture is certainly there now—with Hammer at the heart of it.

Hammer Cycles is open at 403 Washington Street in Lewisburg for sales, service, trade-in, and gear, Tuesdays through Saturdays. Take a peek online at www.hammercycleswv.com, or do yourself a favor and stop by to see Hammer, Elkins, and Messick, their shop dog. The shop carries a wide range of bike and accessory brands fit for any experience, level, or need, and Messick is prepared to greet any cyclist, whether you’re a lifelong gearhead or new to the sport.

For more information on the Greenbrier Valley Hellbenders (or to get yourself and your kids involved!) find them on Facebook or on the WVICL’s website, www.westvirginiamtb.org.