Priscilla works at Safeco Field. She wants to star in action movies. And she likes to ride her bike – as fast as she can.

She started coming to Major Taylor Project club meetings during her freshman year, after her sister, Melissa, told her about it. “At first, I just wanted to check it out,” she says. “Then I started to like it.”

She’s adventurous, and the club offers an endless array of new experiences. “We went to places I never knew were around here, like the marina in Des Moines and the beach. It’s more than just road riding. We get to go mountain biking and go to the Velodrome.”

She’s tried other clubs and after-school sports, but, she says, “I don’t think anything else is better than Major Taylor. People told me to try tennis, but you’re just running back and forth, hitting a racket, not doing anything.”

Bicycling with Major Taylor gives Priscilla the opportunity to lead her peers and feel successful. “When I play basketball, I worry about big people running into me because I’m puny. And if you miss the basket, you feel like you failed.”

She never feels like a failure when she’s on a bicycle. “You’re capable of doing so much, you feel like a different person,” she says.

She’s also gotten to know people that she never would have talked to otherwise. “When I did gymnastics, I only got to know my team,” she says.

She talked to a girl from Chief Sealth High School for three hours on the first day of STP last year. “You’re outside getting fresh air, you’re constantly by someone, you always get to talk to someone new that you never get to talk to.”

She says that being part of Major Taylor has taught her to be a leader. “You have to make sure everyone’s okay, and that you’re okay. You’re part of a team. You don’t know what will happen.”

And, she says, “Anything could happen.”

You can help youth programs like the Major Taylor Project flourish by riding with us this June 30 on the Red-Bell 100. Funds raised through our first ever pledge ride will be distributed both locally to support Cascade Bicycle Club Education Foundation’s extensive youth programming, and globally to support the amazing work of World Bicycle Reliefin Africa.