Our Coaches
Jason Seligman - Team Director, Level 3 Certified
Jason Seligman is the Director of the Gnarlington Shreddlers, the team he founded with three other coaches and four student athletes in 2018.
His passion for mountain biking began in 1986 when college did not offer the XC skiing opportunities that his high school team offered with its journeys into Canada. After college, he and a good friend, Austin McInerny (president of NICA for seven years), started a bike shop and built a racing team that included US cyclocross star Gina Hall. Riding, wrenching, and racing would instill the confidence and focus in Jason that he needed to pursue and obtain a doctorate in Economics from UC Berkeley.
Jason believes that mountain biking offers an outlet to discover physical fitness, mechanical ability, and a belief in one's own voice. Jason believes “play is always about learning. When you care about your play time, you learn a whole new level of personal responsibility--and with that, earned confidence! Sure all of that is great for being a top notch racer, but it is equally great for being a top notch human being."
Jason still loves cross country skiing and is a member of Team Bikenetic, a mountain biking and cyclocross racing team, but at the core of his love of riding is the community of student athletes and coaches on the Gnarlington Shreddlers.
"I love learning from our riders and coaches as they develop their voices in our sport!" - Jason
Bill Hicks - Head Coach, Level 3 Certified
Bill has been mountain biking since the early days of discipline. Growing up in North Carolina as an avid backpacker and rock climber, the evolution of cycling to include mountain biking offered another avenue for exploration and adventure. Bill has pedaled his mountain bike in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado, Utah as well as Honduras. He has participated in a handful of 100-mile races and several multi-day bike packing adventures. Beyond mountain biking, Bill has completed an Ironman, road centuries, crossed North Carolina (West to East) and Iowa (RAGBRAI) by road bike, ridden the TransVirginia Gravel Route from DC to Tennessee and 700 miles of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from Banff, Canada to Helena MT. Bill joined the Gnarlington Shreddlars as an assistant coach in the fall of 2021 when his daughter, Jay, joined the team.
Todd Miller - Assistance Coach, Level 3 Certified
Todd is a U.S. Marine, currently teaching policy and strategy courses at the National Defense University. Todd grew up in Oregon as a road biking enthusiast and pedaled his first mountain bike in 1989. That bike had a rigid tail and a rigid fork! Twenty-five years later he was drawn to coaching when his kids got involved in the sport. Todd has five years of bike coaching experience, and the last two NICA seasons with the Gnarlington Shreddlers. In the off season, he is also a junior alpine ski racing coach for a nearby team. Todd enjoys helping kids achieve their cycling goals through practice and incremental improvement, which is a heuristic for success in other endeavors.
Catherine Riedel - Assistance Coach, Level 2 Certified
Cathy Riedel started mountain biking during her final year at JMU, biking in the rocky George Washington forest and fell in love with it. She adventured with friends on a number of trips and recreational XC races in different parts of the US, but then took a hiatus for about a decade due to lots of work travel and raising a family. She got back into biking about 7 years ago and found her passion in the gravity side of MTB when she entered her first Enduro race in 2019. She also became a MORE Co-liaison for Wakefield Park Trails and spends 60+ hours of volunteer hours a year coordinating trail building and maintenance activities for the trail system.
Kabie Henderson - Assistance Coach, Level 1 Certified
Kabie rode BMX bikes as a kid growing up and was introduced to mountain biking in college by his roommate as way to get out and enjoy nature. However, after college there wasn’t much time for mountain biking and he hung up his bike and helmet. Then in the early 2000s, his interested in mountain biking began to grow as one of his long time friends took up the sport. Then when his kids were old enough, he began taking them out on trail rides with MORE (The Mid-Atlantic Off-Road Enthusiasts), where is his son soon caught the mountain biking bug. Kabie has coached youth basketball, flag football, and now mountain biking. He enjoys encouraging the athletes, watching them improve their skills, seeing their confidence grow as they learn to overcome challenges, and enjoy riding their bikes.
Steph Shelton - Assistance Coach, Level 1 Certified
Steph is a member of Team Bikenetic, a local cyclocross and mountain bike racing team in the Washington DC area. Steph has a background in competitive racing and years of mentorship. She is known for her supportive and motivating style. Steph is dedicated to guiding each student athlete towards their goals while fostering a love for the sport.
Mark deJong - Assistance Coach, Level 1 Certified
Harry Nicholakos - Assistance Coach, Level 1 Certified
Harry rode dirt bikes as a kid and loved creating jumps in the backyard and dreaming to to be like "Evil Knievel". Even if his jumps were a foot high, in his mind, Harry leaped over a dozen buses . When his son showed an interest in mountain biking by joining the Gnarlington Shreddlers, Harry decided joined as a coach. Harry has a love for various sports having played or coached for biking, basketball, diving, football, hockey, soccer, and skiing. He is a true believer in how athletics can teach discipline, sportsmanship, confidence, overcoming adversity, and teamwork to name just a few.
Our Team
