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Entries tagged: Bicycle Education

Like many advocacy organizations, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is working to create a city where all residents — from ages 8 to 80 — feel safe and comfortable walking and biking for transportation and recreation. But, to make that inspiring concept a reality, SFBC knows they need more than crosswalks and bikeways. They need to expand their resources and redefine who they serve, too.

If you survey the streets, it’s not just individual riders pedaling to work. It’s moms with newborns and dads with toddlers two-wheeling to daycare and swinging by the grocery store. So SFBC is making sure the needs of the modern family fit seamlessly with the bicycling lifestyle.

With a large and growing membership, the SFBC recognized that: “Family biking is often a very different experience than biking on your own. Whether you biked a lot before becoming a parent, are just getting back to biking after years away, or want to teach your kids to bike, you very likely have questions about how to approach each stage of family biking.”

So Kit Hodge, along with some SFBC board members and advocates, have endeavored to answer those very questions. The first resource is a new online Family Biking Guide that tackles important topics like:

• Biking pregnant, including advice for each trimester and general tips like what type of bike to ride to accommodate your baby bump
• Biking with your baby or young toddler, including tips for before and after your baby can sit up and suggestions for overcoming legitimate fears for your baby’s safety
• Teaching your child to bike, including an outline of skills to teach to get your kid street ready

But the guide is just the first step. This week, SFBC is kicking off of a three-part family biking class. The free, 90-minute sessions include Biking Pregnant, Biking With Your Baby & Toddler, and Biking Your Child to School.

Kit says she hopes the guide and classes will be an inspiration to current cyclists who don’t want to give up riding because they have a family.

“I suspect that we’ve been losing some people to that transition, at least for a few years,” she says. “The initiative is also part of our overall messaging about 8-to-80 biking in San Francisco, and goes hand in hand with our communications focus on safe and respectful riding this Winter and Spring as we head to crucial votes on new, next generation bikeway projects and implementation.”

Interested in learning more about innovative bicycle safety and education courses like this? Click here for the Family Biking Guide — and stay tuned to our upcoming list of 2012 Mutual Aid Calls!

For 15 years, Elizabeth Bejan has owned a house in the urban core of Kansas City. But now she’s got a second home just around the corner to serve her neighbors with affordable options for active transportation.

The new Community Bike Shop is an outgrowth of RevolveKC, a non-profit Bejan founded with bike-shop owner, Theresa Van Ackeren, in 2009. The organization was created to provide bicycle education for youth, adults and businesses and advance green transportation options throughout the region, but the women knew from the beginning that RevolveKC needed a dedicated space — and, more importantly, Kansas City needed a venue to recondition and recirculate used bikes back into the community.

“From the get go, the plan was to work toward a community bike shop to provide a setting for bicycle safety education and low-cost used bicycles as alternative transportation,” Bejan says. “We were already aware of the Community Cycling Center in Portland, Blackstone Bicycle Works in Chicago, and St Louis Bike Works. Kansas City did not have a fully operating shop of that nature, and we knew we could grow into that after executing some solid community events and a little fundraising.”

In two short years, RevolveKC built that solid foundation and, this week, the Community Bike Shop is celebrating its Grand Opening.

The goal of the shop is three-fold:

• Bicycle collection: Working with businesses and municipalities to collect bicycles that are destined for the landfill.
• Bicycle recycling: Engaging volunteers to refurbish bicycles for recirculation or resale.
• Bicycle classes: Providing education to make Kansas City residents more comfortable commuting by bike.

True to the mission of providing green transportation for all income levels, the Community Bike Shop is offering an earn-a-bike program that allows youth and adults to trade volunteer time or bicycle knowledge for a refurbished ride. “We’re using the Traffic Skills 101 online course and on-bike road test as one of two options that program participants can ‘earn’ their bikes,” Bejan explains. “To date, we’ve provided transportation to 13 commuters in this way.”

To stock the shop with old bicycles, Revolve has already cultivated strong relationships with area municipalities. In fact, next month, the nonprofit is partnering with local cities for two events that include bike collection. And those bikes won’t just go to area residents, either. “We hope to recirculate reconditioned bicycles to any businesses in these municipalities who want to initiate a bikeshare program for their business and pursue Bicycle Friendly Business designation,” Bejan says.

Click the video above for a great interview with Bejan and preview of the space. Or click here to keep track of the Community Bike Shop’s progress on Facebook.

Last week, Camie talked to the folks at the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition about a new grant that will boost their Safe Routes to School activities. Just a few states to the north, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington is also enhancing its SRTS programming by expanding the concept to a new audience.

Thanks to a two-year grant from the Federal Highway Administration, the Bicycle Alliance is launching Go By Bike — an initiative that targets adult bicycle education at community colleges and elementary schools. According to the latest issue of the Bicycle Alliance newsletter, The Advocate, the program will:

• Add 10 to 20 hours of bike safety and maintenance curriculum to existing physical education and health courses taught at community colleges in Central Puget Sound
• Offer parent-education course at elementary schools
• And provide a Web-based forum to augment both curricula

“In one of the programs, I’ll work directly with parents of students at two elementary schools to teach them safe bicycling, encourage bicycling and encourage them to bicycle with their children,” Josh Miller, an urban planning specialist who was hired to lead the program, explained. “In the other program, I’ll be working with four colleges to help them develop safe cycling courses. This will include collaborative curriculum development, assisting with institutionalizing bicycle education programs at each college and mentoring the teachers who will teach the courses.”

The Bicycle Alliance hopes the initiative will add a new dimension to proven programming and impact multiple generations of potential active commuters.

“By incorporating an adult element, Go By Bike will take Safe Routes to School to the next level,” Miller added. “It will go a long way toward getting parents to buy into the concept and trust their kids to bike responsibly.”

Stay tuned to the Bicycle Alliance blog or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to learn more.

Blog contributed by Alliance intern Adam Levine

Students in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are learning that biking and walking are fun, easy ways to get to school.

Thanks to a recent Safe Routes to School grant, Tulsa Hub is teaching bike-skills workshops in five elementary schools throughout the city. Over the course of the 6-week class, students learn safe cycling skills such as helmet fitting, tire repair, signaling, and riding techniques. Taught by League Cycling Instructors, these classes leave the students with a brand new bicycle, helmet, and lock to get them on their way. Through such education, Tulsa Hub hopes to see more students walking and riding to school.

Watch the video below to learn more from Tulsa Hub advocate Ren Barger, and see the program in action.