Interested In Joining Our Team?

Here at This Is Bike Trials!, we’re expanding our team and looking for volunteers. Links to descriptions for specific roles are provided below. Read on to find out what it’s like to be part of the team and how to apply.

Available Positions

We’re currently looking for volunteers to fill the following positions. Click the links for details on responsibilities and duties, qualifications, and more. Scroll to the bottom of this page to apply.

[Note: Additional roles could be added in the future to address additional needs. Possible future roles include original video content creators, crowdsourced content managers, Patreon coordinator, Substack coordinator, and social media coordinator. While these do not currently present our most urgent needs, if any if them interest you more than those listed above and you believe you’d be a strong fit, please contact us to discuss it further.]

Organization & Mission

Our organization is completely focused on the sport of bike trials, whether for fun, for competition, for entertainment, for a career, or for whatever else motivates trials riders to do their thing. In a nutshell, we’re all about learning, riding, and community. Our primary objectives are:

  • Outreach: To create awareness and grow the sport by exposing it to the broader population
  • Community: To help build and support a strong trials biking community: locally, nationally, and globally
  • Inspiration: To provide inspiration and encouragement, both to fellow trials riders and those considering any other difficult endeavors
  • Teaching & Entertainment: To provide quality trials content

Our goal is to be the globally recognized media brand that is synonymous with “bike trials.” We’re looking to build a team in order to expand our capabilities and content offerings. We’ve got a long road ahead of us, which is why we need your help!

Location

All volunteer positions require working remotely, so you would work from your home (or whatever you use for an “office”).

Time Commitment & Duration

One of the objectives of this role is to provide regular ongoing content to our audience. This position is expected to require up to several hours of effort per week depending on each week’s projects (e.g., around certain events). Volunteers are expected to commit to at least 6 months in this position (and provide advanced notice of intent to discontinue volunteer service) in order to provide continuity of the experience to our audience. We can certainly discuss the details of your availability and the extent to which you can commit your time.

Work Environment

First and foremost, we are dedicated to providing valuable trials-related content. We intend to build a team that will allow us to increase the breadth and depth of our content offerings in order to expand our reach and increase our value to the trials community. Our team will include volunteers who each will fill fairly specific roles, though the definitions of roles are likely to evolve over time.

The volunteer team we’re building will be focused on various aspects of coordinating and producing content across a variety of platforms. While all team members will most likely be geographically separated, we will work together to plan and coordinate our efforts in order to execute the founder’s vision. The founder sets the overall vision and provides some direction, but expects team members to use their skills and creativity to plan and develop the content as well as to suggest new ideas. In some cases the founder will provide specific direction regarding the theme and/or details of the content while still leaving you a certain amount of creative discretion; in other cases, the founder will be looking more for your ideas and input regarding the content and the approach. All work will be reviewed by the founder prior to publication in order to ensure that it meets the expected objectives, quality requirements, and brand alignment.

Initially content will be developed in an ad-hoc fashion, but the goal will be to eventually use a content calendar to guide which content we will develop and when we will publish it. Once established, the content calendar will be maintained by the content manager who will coordinate content publication to align themes and timing of events, etc. Each member of the team will develop their assigned content according to the content calendar, and will engage with the founder, content manager, and the team to propose, plan, and coordinate content topics. The objective is to build and sustain a content development team that regularly publishes a wide variety of high-value trials-related content across multiple platforms in a coordinated fashion and aligned with our overall vision.

Given that This Is Bike Trials! has a limited operating budget, you’ll need to provide your own tools, including computer, internet access, software, cameras, etc. 

While we are a team of volunteers who are all donating our time and energy, that does not in any way imply that we will settle for a lower level of professionalism or quality. We expect team members to continually demonstrate the following, in no particular order:

  • Respect for teammates, members of the trials community, and our audience
  • Integrity and honesty in everything we do (including but not limited to avoiding copyright infringement)
  • Reliability in meeting our commitments
  • High quality content and attention to detail
  • Ownership and initiative
  • Alignment with our brand and vision
  • Clear communication and coordination with the team

Note regarding the use of generative AI: While generative AI is now “the next big thing,” we must ensure that our work is legitimate, accurate, and truly our own. Content that you provide must be your own, and not produced by prompts given to generative AI tools. Use of generative AI to create content is strictly prohibited, though it can be used to brainstorm avenues of research, and possibly some other use cases (open for discussion with the founder). However, if you use generative AI tools in any way to support your research, you must check all “facts” using alternative methods to verify their accuracy (i.e., No generative AI is truly “intelligent” and does make up “facts” on occasion).

Orientation and Training

Our onboarding process is relatively limited. New team members will be introduced to the team virtually and provided with email addresses and user accounts as applicable. Orientation and training will generally be provided ad-hoc, with initial topics focused on expectations, systems, processes, and tools. We will provide cursory informal training on the specific implementation of our tools (e.g., Google Docs, WordPress, etc.), but not detailed training on how to use the software itself. Deep training on specific software applications will not be provided – the expectation is that if you do not already have these skills, that you will take the initiative to learn them in order to meet the needs of your role and associated assignments.

Supervision

In this position you will report directly to the founder. You’ll generally be expected to be in contact with him at least once a week, but frequency could change based on the nature of each week’s projects. Methods of contact will vary based on need, but can include email, text, voice, and video chats (e.g., Discord and/or Zoom).

Volunteer Perks

  • Your profile will be posted on the This Is Bike Trials! website (while an active volunteer)
  • You can include the position with This Is Bike Trials! on your LinkedIn profile (tied to our LinkedIn page)
  • FREE This Is Bike Trials! T-shirt
  • 15% off This Is Bike Trials! branded merch (while an active volunteer)
  • This Is Bike Trials! email address (while an active volunteer)

Disclaimer

The job descriptions provided herein do not comprehensively define all of the expected responsibilities and duties for each of the respective volunteer positions. The scope of the roles could change at any time without prior notice.

How to Apply

Are you onboard with our vision and mission? Do you want to play an important role in building something special – to be part of something bigger than yourself? To generate broader awareness of our beloved sport? To serve the trials community? To build relationships with others in the trials community? To build and grow your own experience? If so, please consider volunteering your time and talents.

In order to ensure that we can deliver valuable content in alignment with our brand and vision while also preparing for future content expansion, we will evaluate each applicant individually to ensure that we have a mutual good fit. But this isn’t just about what we get from you, it’s also about what you get from us: we want you to feel like a valued member of the team, to feel pride and fulfillment from your work, and to feel that your efforts provide meaningful contributions towards our overall mission. For these reasons, we use a candidate evaluation process. This process will typically include a live ‘virtual’ interview with the founder and possibly other team members (e.g., using Zoom or Discord) to discuss each candidate’s interests, related experience, skills and capabilities, availability, etc. For some roles, candidates also may be asked to provide examples of their related work and/or complete an introductory assignment in order to evaluate things such as ability to generate content that aligns with the brand, vision, and mission and work well with the team.

The first step is to submit an application using our online volunteer application form. After your application has been submitted, it will be reviewed and you will be contacted usually within a few days to schedule an interview and collect any additional information.

If you have any questions about the available roles, volunteering, etc., please reach out and ask using the site Contact Us form or DM on any of our social media channels.