Monday, March 2, 2026
It was only four years ago that Raquel “Rocky” Tiyaga rode a bike for the first time since she was a kid. Her friends encouraged her to participate in a 30-mile gravel race. This ended in Tiyaga flying over her handle bars but also looking to purchase her own bike the same day.
“Something must have resonated,” said Tiyaga, who for the past three years has coached Milwaukee Recreation’s middle- and high-school competitive mountain biking team (MKE MTB). “Flash forward … and here I am coaching kids, racing bikes, and planning vacations around biking. I even signed up for the 100-mile version of that first race.”
On top of these impressive accomplishments, Tiyaga was recently nominated for the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) Coach of the Year award. NICA organizes more than 30 youth mountain biking leagues across the country, including the Wisconsin Interscholastic Cycling League, which includes MKE MTB. Tiyaga was one of just 16 coaches nationwide nominated for female Coach of the Year.
When asked how she feels about the nomination, Tiyaga said jokingly, “I didn’t even know there was such a thing. But now that I know, I think I have to go for gold!”
MKE MTB practices twice a week during the summer and fall. Student-athletes have the opportunity to compete in five races each season where they face off against teams from throughout Wisconsin. Practices take place at Riverside University High School and MacDowell Montessori School, but Tiyaga organizes group rides on off-site trails whenever possible.
“I’m really proud of the MKE MTB team,” Tiyaga said. “We’re unique in the fact that we’ve curated a space for kids of all levels and backgrounds to exist on the same team — from first-time riders to podium contenders, and we’ve done so with a lot fewer resources than a lot of other teams in our league. We show up … in a yellow school bus and use borrowed bikes and prove that we don’t need the latest and greatest to be the raddest little community.”
Tiyaga is a Milwaukee native and Riverside graduate. She said the most important role of a coach is to “be vulnerable and human” — to show the kids that coaches, too, “struggle, try again, fail, succeed, get sad, and get stoked.”
“It lets them know it’s okay for them to do that, too,” she said, adding that her athletes have undoubtedly returned the care and support she has shown them. Tiyaga admits she would not have had many of the mountain biking successes she’s had without her team in her corner.
Tiyaga’s coaching approach is centered in play and encourages competition, joy, challenges, and silliness.
“I try to remind the kids that, at the end of the day, all of this is made up. Rules are made up and nothing really matters — not in a bad way, but like, have fun with it all,” she said. “We’re all just here figuring it out.”
Additionally, Tiyaga highlighted the importance of letting kids be part of conversations about goal-setting and improving the team environment. Each athlete responds best to different training and activities and has unique goals, wants, and needs, Tiyaga said, “so I skip the guessing, and I just ask for their input.”
Ultimately, Tiyaga’s greatest hope as a coach is that her athletes find community, joy, and pride in themselves. “We’re living in a world with so much digital access that we don’t even recognize how lonely we are,” she said. “Kids aren’t out looking for community like they used to, … and I think we’ve all forgotten how to just go play outside. So, I’m glad we have this team and this space for [kids] to be able to find a love for that.”