On a winter morning in New York City, a Stuyvesant student’s trek to the subway station through massive slush piles may be the most difficult part of getting to school. For biology teacher Stephen McClellan, decking out in mountain biking gear, snow boots and his signature yellow waterproof bag is just the beginning. He then mounts his mountain bike, and his journey to Stuyvesant begins.

From Bushwick, Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, McClellan rides his bike to school on a regular basis, enduring pain daily from handlebar paisley, a condition where the nerves in your hand constrict. McClellan wanted to fulfill his pledge to ride his bicycle to school every day last year, no matter the weather conditions. He had always enjoyed riding bikes and it was “not as crowded as the subway and great cardiovascular exercise.” He also enjoys seeing the city and the seasons change.

Even on days when snow and sheets of solid ice cover the Brooklyn Bridge, McClellan still rides to school, opting for his mountain bike. He recalls a day when his mountain bike broke down and he had to ride his road bike, which has thinner tires. While on the Brooklyn Bridge, a car drove past him through an icy puddle, and an actual wave broke on him and his bike. He then had to “slide down the bridge” and couldn’t pedal since it was so icy. Luckily, no one was brave enough to bike on the bridge that day to see McClellan basically “fall the length of the Brooklyn Bridge on a bike.”

Unfortunately, McClellan has not been able to ride his bike for the past month “due to injuries,” unrelated to the past incident. He now temporarily rides the subway to school.

Aside from his choice of transportation, McClellan has some things in common with Stuyvesant students. During high school, McClellan took many honors classes in chemistry, physics and calculus, but also balanced his time by being very physically active in sports. There was also a period when he enjoyed skateboarding and listening to hip-hop. He then began listening to “all kinds of rock” and even claims to know a member of the band “The Queers.”After high school, McClellan went to school in North Carolina, where he studied pre-med and industrial hygiene—“basically environmental stuff.” He then moved to Colorado for five years “just to snowboard and go mountain biking.” But he also worked in an engineering firm as a lab manager of applied sciences, and in a wastewater treatment facility in the mountains of Colorado.

During this period of his life, McClellan worked a variety of “odd jobs.” He drove buses, which involved learning to parallel park 40 foot long vehicles. He did industrial painting, which involved hanging from ropes upside down and painting hot steam pipes while he and his friends sang Nirvana songs. He clicked records and worked for a drug company. He was a bus washer, a dish washer, a cook and a bar tender. He also worked on an oyster farm in Alaska, while living on a boat, where he learned how to grit oysters, and how to grow oysters.

After working for a geotechnical engineering company in California, he decided to be a part of the NY Teaching Fellows Program, where teachers from various backgrounds collaborate to serve in underserved science schools. He worked at a school in the Bronx for several years before he was recommended to be a biology teacher at Stuyvesant High School three years ago. McClellan’s signature teaching style involves what he calls “visually engaging” outlines using PowerPoint presentations. Even more, he tries to make the chapters in the biology textbook less intimidating by making his presentations colorful. “Having tech in the classroom is very beneficial, even though I have to put in a lot of time, and money, for videos and nice projectors,” he said.

Junior Margaret Borowcyzk, who had McClellan as a Biology teacher in freshman year, calls him the “best bio teacher in the department,” and enjoys how McClellan “fashions a Sierra Club (environmental organization) style beard, uses the term ‘macho squid’ in explaining oceanic mating rituals, explains that trees can be deciduous, unlike arms, and points out the hottest new ‘ecological vacation spots.’”

Junior Claire Littlefield enjoyed the personal anecdotes that McClellan inserts into his lessons. “He tells numerous amounts of stories about numerous ways he injured himself. I found that pretty entertaining,” Littlefield said.

Aside from his visually attractive teaching style, McClellan has been a vegan for 10 years, and is now a vegetarian—a result of his concern for “animal rights” (he has five cats and once had a ferret). McClellan maintains his diet by usually cooking his own food. He even makes his own vegan soup at work in a croc pot.

So when he’s not spending his time mountain biking, sometimes all the way to Pennsylvania, or backpacking along the Appalachian Trail to Connecticut with his friends, or even driving across the country for his 19th time, McClellan constantly inspires his students with his amusing stories, amazing recreational activities and elaborate teaching tactics.