Home

Steamboat Springs — When Steamboat Springs resident Phil White lived in Fra­ser, he thought the steep dirt road outside his home wasn’t the ideal place to teach his 7-year-old daughter how to ride a bike. But on Tuesday, Simone smiled as she pedaled along the concrete paths of Strawberry Park Elementary School with her classmates.

“It feels like you’re flying when you take your feet off the ground,” she said after taking part in a series of biking exercises, including an obstacle course.

Simone joined other kindergarten through fifth-grade students Tuesday at a bike rally at the middle and elementary school campus that taught the students several techniques to use on a bike ride to school. Students received tips about trail etiquette as they rode on a gravel path at the school.

“It’s great to see how experienced the instructors here at the rally are,” parent volunteer Scott Wedel said as he monitored the start of the trail etiquette course. “You’ve got people that have ridden to Denver in a day and cyclists you wouldn’t want to ride head-to-head against up a hill.”

After they checked their bike tires and adjusted the straps on their helmets, students at the elementary school arrived at the courses in waves. The children were separated into age groups and given 1 1/2 hours to practice their cycling skills.

“I definitely had the most fun on the obstacle course,” third-grader Kai Franken said. “It was challenging.”

The rally was funded by a Safe Routes to School grant received this year by Routt County and the Steamboat Springs School District from the Colorado Department of Transportation. The grant also will be used to fund the development of a map detailing safe routes to the school and a computer kiosk that children can use to track their biking mileage.

“If every kid here takes away one new safety skill or bit of knowledge, then I think we have accomplished something,” event organizer Paige Boucher said. “We’ve tried to include a series of situations that kids might encounter in this biking community.”

One such situation was a long stretch of parking lot that had the students riding parallel to parked cars. A volunteer activated a car’s brake and reverse lights to test the children’s reactions to a vehicle that could potentially pull out in front of their bike.

Volunteer Blair Seymour designed the “street smarts” course and said she knows what weaknesses the students might have as they bike to school.

“We’re trying to get them all on the same page for what they need to know in these types of situations,” she said. “All of the drivers don’t know all of the rules either, so it’s important to teach them things like making eye contact with cars and being aware of potentially dangerous situations.”

At the end of the day, Sey­mour and Boucher seemed to be enjoying the bike rally.

“We’re having at least as much fun as the kids,” Boucher said.

The bike rally continues today for Steamboat Springs Mid­dle School sixth-graders and Thur­­sday at the Soda Creek Elemen­tary School.