Last weekend instructors from our award-winning Bike East Bay education program loaded up our Family Cycling Rodeo kit into a ZipCar cargo van and headed for Fremont’s Earth Day Fest, where 90 parents and kids got on bikes with us and learned safe riding skills by playing fun games. Thanks to ZipCar for their support of this program by providing vehicles!
At these free family classes, kids in grades 2 through 6 get excited about biking while learning valuable safety skills. By playing fun games youth participants learn starting/stopping and straight line riding via our “power pedal” and slow races, helmet fit and bike check instruction, signaling and bike handling via our intersection course and bike teeter totters. These sessions also provide parents with an opportunity to ask our experienced instructors questions about riding as a family, and find out how to get connected as supporters of bikeway campaigns in their neighborhood.
(Photo credit City of Fremont)
This was our fourth year participating in the Fremont Earth Day Fest, hosted outside Washington Hospital next to the Fremont BART station. It was great to see so many people come out on a beautiful April weekend to learn more about how they can help protect the planet, and stay healthy by taking more trips by bike. We even got a visit from Fremont City Councilmember Teresa Keng, to check out the family class and talk about the annual Bike to Work Day and Bike to School Day festivities coming up in May!
New and family-friendly infrastructure in Fremont is also helping to make it easier for more people to get on a bike, such as the raised bikeway and protected intersection at the BART station entrance (come to the ribbon cutting on Bike to Work Day, 9am on May 9th!).
(Photo credit City of Fremont)
Find a Class Near You
If you missed this event don’t worry, we have lots more free family classes coming up soon around the East Bay in cities like Alameda, Antioch, Bay Point, Concord, Dublin, Oakland, and Orinda. Go to BikeEastBay.org/FCW for complete details and sign up today.
We also offer free classes for adults and teens as well, from learn-to-ride workshops all the way to advanced bike handling sessions, with dates available at BikeEastbay.org/Education.
Can’t make it to a class in person? Find info on topics like biking after dark, theft prevention, planning a route, reporting potholes, and much more at BikeEastBay.org/EducationResources.
