How a teacher's love of cycling and a nation-wide call for donations started Yarralin's first bike club

Barefoot with helmets strapped tight, speeding past ageing houses and along dusty red tracks, dodging stray dogs and potholes, the kids revel in cheers from the sidelines.

It is race day in Yarralin, and almost everyone in town has come to watch.

Parents yell encouragement from their fences, one of the local police officers acts as the unofficial timekeeper and the Mayor is there to rally the cyclists across the finish line.

It is a handicap race for all ages and abilities, on donated bikes that are wearing out quickly from overuse.

One year ago, working bicycles did not exist in Yarralin — a tiny Indigenous community in the Northern Territory, connected only by miles of treacherous dirt road in one of the most remote corners of Australia.

But now, the bike club that started with one teacher's love of cycling and a nationwide call-out for donations, has transformed an entire town and captured the hearts of nearly every resident.

«Everyone can't wait to ride the bikes,» 10-year-old Olivia Rankin says.

«All of us at the school had never [ridden] bikes.»

For years, Wesley Campbell's job as the supervisor of the Remote School Attendance Strategy was a herculean task.

A traditional owner of Yarralin, he is tasked with getting up early and rallying students to school in a bid to buck a record of low school attendance in the Northern Territory's remotest schools.

Education Department figures show some remote schools' attendance rates were as low as 14 per cent in 2019.

«It was a bit hard before, some of the kids didn't want to come to school because they [wanted to stay home] for video games, YouTube, and TikTok,» Mr Campbell said.

«Monday to Friday now, they are here before me.

»My job is to try get 80 per cent attendance, that's the goal,