Project Ride Smart ends

This week, many more LCIs joined us for the final set of blacktop drills and street ride. L-R: Mellissa, Doug, Jeff, Elle. We're having lunch in the classroom where the bikes are stored.

L-R: Elle, Pollyanna, Scarlet.

I stayed on campus with the red group. Here students are doing the ABCQuick Check. A = air. B = brakes. C  = chain, cranks, cassette. Quick = quick release especially the seat post to adjust for proper seat height.

Scarlet led the blue group off campus. The route was carefully planned so teachable moments would occur such as proper lane position, yielding at round-abouts, right and left turns, avoiding the door zone, and much more. Each student practiced as individual drivers of their vehicles.

Pollyanna led the yellow group. There were two LCIs per group of no more than 8 students.

Parent volunteers also went along. At the left, one of my red group riders is practicing power pedal, starting and stopping.

I am pleased to say that our team successfully taught 5 students HOW to ride a bike!

Project Ride Smart

I started working at H Allen Hight Elementary on Oct 14 teaching bicycle skills to four classes of 5th graders. This time, my teaching partner is Scarlet. Project Ride Smart lasts for three weeks. Each class will get 9 hours of intense instruction, blacktop drills, and a longer ride in the surrounding community.

Nice straight lines for the blacktop drills.

A fleet of bicycles in three sizes to meet the needs of everyone.

We took advantage of the decorations put out for the annual Harvest Festival.

Bike Palo Alto

I was invited by the Safe Routes to School coordinator to do a presentation at Bike Palo Alto.

El Carmelo was on a route through the city where participants could stop

for information on bicycle routes through the neighborhoods of Palo Alto,

get a helmet fit, find the safest route to school,

or learn more about family bicycling.

Safe Routes to School: Day 2

I parked my bike at the free bike valet.

Elle was a member of my LCI training classes. At the conference, she was part of a team

promoting Kidical Mass - Mixing children, grown-ups, and bicycles together.

There was all manner of kid-toting styles, some behind the bike and a few in the front.

A 3-mile ride through downtown.

My tour began after lunch. A group of about 30 people walked to the Amtrak station for a short ride to the Bicycling Capital of the USA, Davis.

This 14-mile riding tour explored the programs and infrastructure of Davis. Those who didn't bring their own bicycles, had rental bikes waiting for them at the Davis Amtrak station.

The director of UCD's transportation department told us about how 20,000 bicycles/day are managed within a student population of 33,000 students.

A relatively new community, UCDavis Village West is "the largest planned zero net energy community in the United States."

Here, the City of Davis bought then tore down a house to create this bike path, a vital connector between communities.

This conference was great and I appreciate very much NNTMA's sponsorship.

Safe Routes to School: Day 1

North Natomas Transportation Management District generously invited me to attend the 4th annual national conference. Perfect, I'll ride my bike to downtown Sacramento.

Despite doing my ABCQuick Check and going for a test ride yesterday, I soon had a flat tire. Since I'm not a tire-changing whiz (like Dick), I took the bus and RT downtown to the Sheraton Grand on J St.

650 participants this year.

Project Ride Smart ends

Today was the last day of bicycle skills instruction at Regency Park Elementary.  Teaching this class was so much fun and the students learned a lot according to the results of the post test.  Hopefully skills learned from the blacktop drills and streets rides will be applied when they ride in their neighborhood.  These posters were an additional assignment from classroom teachers.

The school ends (for students) on May 31.  Teachers were asked to volunteer to clean and organize some additional spaces around the school.  No one, however, volunteered to clean the principal's office.

Family Graduation Ride

In the early evening, following a light dinner, two families from Regency Park Elementary, and four LCIs went for a bike ride in the Natomas neighborhood.  This ride would have looked much different if all the families of 120 students had been able to participate.

Project Ride Smart

The 10-day Project Ride Smart program began with 3 days of classroom instruction/helmet and bike fitting then 3 days of blacktop drills: riding straight, using proper hand signals, scanning over left shoulder to check for traffic, and the 8-step left turn, the most complicated maneuver. Today began 3 days of street rides if students passed the blacktop drills (just 4 of 120 students were too unsteady to leave campus).  Each class of about 30 students was divided into 4 groups.  Each group had two LCIs and maybe a parent volunteer.  L-R: Pollyanna, hula-hooping Elle, Doug, Matthew, Jeff.  Not pictured: Brad, Mellissa (director of Project Ride Smart), and me. 

Matthew shared his personal story with the students during the classroom instruction when we discussed the importance of always wearing a helmet (adults too) and the consequences of receiving a brain injury.  About a year and a half ago, Matthew was riding his bike on Elkhorn Blvd and was hit from behind by a driver who fell asleep going 55-60 mph.  He had a broken leg, shattered knee, broken ribs.  The helmet saved his life but he did get a serious brain injury.  He was in the hospital for 2 1/2 months and has been in physical and brain therapy for the past year.  His body healed but not his brain, he no longer has any sense of smell or taste, nor does he feel any emotions.  He's back to riding his bike everywhere he goes, at a pace of about 10,000 miles/year, and likes to do double-centuries (200 miles in one day).  His story is a powerful one for the students.

Project Ride Smart

First day of work at Regency Park Elementary in Twin Rivers USD. Rio Linda Union School District was one of the school districts blended into TRUSD, so I knew a few of the teachers and staff members.  We will be working with four 5th grade classes over the next 2 1/2 weeks.  One of the 5th grade teachers was Joni O'Connor, a Rio Linda "native," a favorite "mom" from my past, and whose son attended Westside Charter School when I taught there.

 

My teaching partner, Brad Meyers, has been teaching bicycling instruction for over 3 years, so my first time out of the gate was a smooth one. 

I would have loved to have had a Smart Board when I was teaching.  It connects to any computer to project images and lessons.  There are four colored markers in the tray.  When you pick one up, the Smart Board knows and the lines made on the board are that color.  There's even an electronic eraser.

(As it would turn out, this job would take more time and be more exhausting than I expected.  Blogging and other daily tasks would slow to the point of not happening.) 

LCI: Natomas Middle School

Hurray! A chance to work as an LCI for a couple of days presenting bicycle safety information to grades 7-8 at Natomas Middle School.

Art work on display in the school office.

My teaching partner Brad and I made thirteen 45-minute presentations.  A short video then a game of Jeopardy with valuable follow-up information.  One of the main points was wearing a helmet which reduces the chances of brain injury by 85% if a crash happens.  A bicycle driver not wearing a helmet is 14 times more likely to die.

Presenting/teaching anything to middle school students can be a challenge.  Thank goodness Brad and I were able to work well together even though this was our first time as a teaching team.  Were we effective?  Hard to say.  At the end of the second day, I left the gym a few minutes before the end of school and went to the bike rack to observe.  38 bicycles were locked up but only ONE student left wearing a helmet at the end of the school day.

First teaching day as an LCIT

LCIT = League Cycling Instructor in Training.  Not quite there yet. Today I observed the very experienced Pollyanna along with LCIT Doug (from my recent training classes) introduce the program to two fifth-grade classrooms at Natomas Park Elementary.  The banner behind me was put up by NNTMA = North Natomas Transportation Management Association.  I think that's who will be my actual employer.  Eventually.

Becoming an LCI

LCI = League Cycling Intructor.  My friend, Adrienne, sent me a flyer advertising for someone who is passionate about bicycling to teach bicycling skills to 5th graders.  This sounded like the perfect part-time job for me.  I have a lot of bicycling experience, I know how to teach 5th graders ... this will be a snap.  Ha!  I would soon realize there was much more to learn and I wasn't all that good on a bicycle.

Step 1: join the League of American Bicyclists.  Organized in 1880 as the American League of Wheelmen, the original purpose was to encourage the paving of roads in the USA and led to our national highway system.

Step 2: take Traffic Skills 101 which I did in mid-January.  I only passed this class after practicing the instant right turn, rock dodge, and quick stop until I could be retested at the end of January.

Step 3:  study a binderful of materials to get ready to take a pre-test which consisted of 50 multiple choice, 25 true/false, and 10 short answer.  For some reason I didn't get the email which said where to send the completed test.  On Saturday 2 Feb, I was sent into a panic when I got an email which said turn in the test by Sunday night or forget about it.  Thank goodness I could send my answers by email (to South Carolina no less).  By the next morning, I received word that I didn't get 85% or better and didn't pass but could resubmit.  The test corrector gave excellent feedback as to where I went wrong.  Although the directions said the short answers should be 2-3 sentences, what was actually wanted was 2-3 short paragraphs.  I spent the first 3 quarters of the Super Bowl redoing and resubmitting the pre-test and raised my score to 90%, but I was not a very nice guest at the party.

Step 4: On Wednesday 6 February - just two days before the Seminar began - the group of 16 participants received an email assigning us to groups of 3 or 4 and a topic for a presentation and an individual topic for another presentation.  Uh-oh.  Time to panic again.  I imagined myself competing to become the Next Food Network Star.  "You will be working with 2 people you will only meet on the day of the presentation. You have 48 hours to perfect an 8-minute commercial on the Principles of Traffic Law.  You may communicate by email if you wish, or not."

In my wackier moments I thought about The League and how it reminded me of the (DC Comics) League of Justice. If I become an LCI, I'll have reached senior-citizen superhero status. Ooh, I need a costume not just the stance and the arched eyebrow.

I continued to practice the instant right turn,

learned how to adjust the rim brakes,

and collected materials for my individual presentation on Sharing Paths/Trails and Group Riding.

February 8-10, UC Davis, the Transportation and Parking Services building was the location of the Seminar.  

20 hours of teaching, learning, discussing;

setting up, teaching, and performing the handling drills in a parking lot;

presentations (everyone was nervous) and critiques by everyone in the room; road testing and teaching on the streets of Davis; and a night ride.

In the end, I passed!  No one failed, but about half must do some remediation and be retested by an LCI trainer before moving on to the next step.

I sent out an email asking permission to post this picture to the blog and received this response from Scarlet:  "I want full credit with huge arrows pointing at me and a caption saying something about me being the best student in the class. And by 'best', I mean the one who liked to participate in every frickin' thing and was probably really annoying!!!  You have my permission to use my likeness on your personal blog and might I suggest just putting a big fuzzy blotch over whomever declines your request?! That was a great weekend and I feel very blessed to have met you and (almost) all the other participants!!"

Whew! I'm so glad it's over.  This was the most challenging thing I've done in a long time.  I know so much more than I did when I started and realize I will never stop learning how to be a better bicyclist.

I also need to thank Dick for his help and patience over the past few weeks.  Never once did he complain even when I wasn't the easiest person to live with at times.