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Nike Sponsored Youth Noise:Play City Interviews Nitish Nag

Nitish Nag: Outdoor Leader Extraordinaire. Posted by: trinachi on March 07, 2010.
Nitish Nag is not your average college student. Among other achievements, Nitish is a mountain bike racer, a nutrition/biology/biochem researcher, an Outdoor Idol, a youth leader, a coach, a NOLS certified Backcountry Backpacking Trip Leader, and a Leave No Trace instructor. He also serves as an ambassador for Outdoor Nation—an organization that empowers young people to reclaim, redefine, and rediscover the outdoors.I recently had the chance to catch up with Nitish to ask him about biking, developing youth projects, outdoor sustainability, and the future. Check it out:
TC: How did you first get into cycling? NN: My father and I used to go for short rides on the bike path when I was in elementary school. Since he had a busy work schedule, he would not be able to go with me very often. One Friday, he promised to come home early from work to ride with me, but flaked at the last minute. I was a very rebellious kid and decided to just go off on my own, not caring whether I got in trouble or not. I was 10 years old. Exploring the trails on my own was a true sense of freedom that I felt. I moved on to more technical and challenging trails that I would never get to go on with my parents. From then on I was hooked.TC: You’ve been involved in several projects to make cycling more accessible to youth. What are these projects?NN: I am the Founder and President of the NRL Racing Development Cycling Team. NRL Racing is a Junior U18 and U23 development cycling team, fueling enthusiastic bicycle racers from the San Francisco Bay Area. The team focuses on bringing the best mountain bikers to the start line in endurance events such as the cross country, short track and super D competitions. We also compete in Road races, Downhill, Slalom and other types of bike races. All levels are welcome to join on the condition that they dedicate themselves to bringing the best out of their potential; we do not discriminate based on skill level. NRL is a completely non-profit team. We also do volunteer work to help the cycling community, such as trail building and bike commuting.

I was also involved with helping the NorCal High School Mountain Bike League get started (which has evolved into a national League). The NorCal High School Mountain Bike League works to establish and maintain safe, high-quality high school mountain bike programs, provide coaching and racing opportunities for high school students, and develop healthy and responsible community members of the future.

There are many other activities that I am involved in that help the youth, such as the Outdoor Nation program, several high school mountain bike teams, and outdoor activity guiding.

TC: What do you like about working with youth?

NN: The satisfaction received from giving opportunity to others goes above and beyond any personal achievement. It’s like planting a flower and watching it bloom. Although the flower is beautiful, it’s the planter that enjoys that beauty the most. Promoting a healthy, active, and fun future for our world is a top priority for me. Many of the problems we face can be solved in this manner. Obesity, diabetes, depression, heart disease, environmental issues and much more all have a solution. It just needs to be implemented and I love facilitating that.

TC: You’ve also spent a lot of time backpacking and engaging in several outdoor activities beyond cycling. Tell us a bit about your outdoor experience.

NN: My family used to go on small car camping trips when I was little. This was a big inspiration for me when I was in my early years (before 10 years old). I loved the exploration and adventure. Since then I have slowly expanded my love of the outdoors through various activities such as rock climbing, backpacking, and much more. Each activity gives me a fresh and distinct perspective on enjoying nature, challenging myself, and inspiring great thought.

TC: What is Leave No Trace? Do you find that most people understand and appreciate Leave No Trace practices, or is there a need for more education?

NN: The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is an educational, nonprofit organization dedicated to the responsible enjoyment and active stewardship of the outdoors by all people, worldwide. Basically, when you are enjoying the purity and peacefulness of the outdoors, you want others to have the same opportunity to enjoy what you did. For those that are already avid outdoors folk, they understand the value of LNT, because they actually use the outdoors a lot to recreate and thus want it to stay beautiful. For those that only occasionally head out into the outdoors, they do not grasp the fact that LNT practice is very important. There is a strong cultural value for properly disposing of trash in the city (such as throwing away your soda bottle in the recycling bin and NOT on the street). This cultural trend is slowly growing for the outdoors, but is not at the optimal level yet.

TC: I hear that you’re studying Nutritional Science, Biochemistry and Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. How does this tie into your life as an athlete?

NN: Studying these subjects allows me to work on problems from two sides. One is the athletic performance side where we are trying to see the limits of human perfection. On the other hand we study these subjects to see how we can better understand and treat disease for those that are not able to perform optimally. As an athlete I can both understand the theory and the application of these sciences. As a scientist who works in these fields, I enjoy seeing brilliant ideas in the lab applied to everyday life scenarios, such as for an athlete or for someone with diabetes. Being well educated about this material also allows me to give my athletes cutting edge information on science for performance, while cutting out the myths and hype of popular training trends.

TC: What are some of your goals for the future?

NN: I am on track to graduate from University of California Berkeley with my triple major. Following this I will go to do an MD / PhD program where I will continue to do research in the above fields. At the same time I will be racing professionally on my mountain bike, still coaching youth athletes and inspiring others.

TC: Anything else you’d like to share?

NN: Get out, have fun, stay healthy and active. Be awesome!

Thanks, Nitish! Best of luck in both your sports and your studies.