Two wheeled dreams
Wolcott students lining up for a chilly morning of riding.
“Me and my friends, when we got on our bikes, we would just ride. Sometimes we would even get lost, because we’d be gone for so long. But there was a sense of joy and comfort. There was nothing that really could stop us. We felt like we were on top of the world. It was a way of life. If you had a bike, it was a way to kind of let go and be free.”
You’d be forgiven, this being an Outdoor Center blog, thinking the above quote came from a famous rower, skier, or cyclist. However would be mistaken. The man waxing poetic about the joys of riding a bike as a child is none other than LeBron James, one of the greatest basketball players of all time. James’ love of bikes is well documented: all the students at his Akron charter school receive a bike, James himself rides a custom 36” wheeled rig, and he has been known to commute to games via bicycle.
One need not be a literal living legend to enjoy riding a bike. James’ quote is about as close to a universal truth of cycling as exists: bikes represent freedom. In an effort to bring that freedom to our area’s youth, the Outdoor Center received a grant from the Northern Forest Center this spring to purchase a fleet of twenty kids’ bikes to take around to local schools to either introduce or improve students’ bike skills.
Instructors Ollie Burruss (in black) and Jeff Tucker (in blue) greet second graders from Wolcott.
Heading into the program, none of the instructors - Ollie Burruss, Audrey Mangan, Jake Barton, and Jeff Tucker - had spent time teaching kids how to literally ride a bicycle. All of the Center’s bike-related programming had focused on advancing the skills of riders already capable of safely pedaling a bike. That said, previous experience working with the Albany Community School (ACS) had made clear that not all kids learn to ride a bike at home. Bringing bikes into schools is the best way to ensure that every kid in the area gets an opportunity to learn to ride.
Knowing that we would encounter kids who had never ridden a bike before, we removed the cranks, chain, and pedals from a handful of the bikes, turning them into 16” wheeled balance bikes* with handbrakes. This way beginners could gain confidence balancing on two wheels before switching over to the exact same bike - same size, same components - just with the addition of cranks and pedals.
(*A quick note on balance bikes: ditch the training wheels! A balance bike and a small downhill does far more to teach proper balance than a bike with training wheels on flat ground. Once confidence is developed for coasting on a balance bike, the switch to pedaling without training wheels is pretty intuitive and straightforward.)
From the outset the program was a huge success. On day one in Albany we got three kindergarteners and four first/second graders, none of whom had ridden bikes without training wheels, pedaling around the baseball diamond. Throughout the first two weeks of the program the story was the same: kids who had never ridden before learned to balance by coasting down a small hill and then quickly moved on to pedaling once they hit flat ground. There were some challenges getting kids started pedaling from a stationary start, but after learning to balance without training wheels that challenge seemed vastly more achievable.
For more experienced riders we focused instruction on a hybrid of skills progression and safe riding practices. Each day we went through a helmet safety check prior to riding. We highlighted skills that would serve them well as they transitioned into trail riding, from standing up on the pedals and proper braking to various forms of bike-body separation.
Testing the teeter-totter under the watchful eye of the instructors.
One specific highlight was the set of wooden features that we brought to each school along with the bikes. Noted craftsman Jake Barton made a couple of ramps and even a teeter-totter for the program (thanks to Alex Wright Cedar Products in Danville for the wood!). The teeter-totter was especially popular, with kids of all skill levels tackling it either on foot or on bikes (always under the watchful eye of the instructors).
Watching students gain confidence on the bikes and push their comfort zones outside the traditional classroom environment was inspiring. Teachers reported that kids showed increased focus and effort both during classes after the bike sessions and in the days leading up to each week’s session. Students who struggle in the traditional learning environment benefited in particular from the outdoor learning environment. Our hope is that they can take the confidence built up around a skill like riding and apply it in other ways, both in and out of the classroom.
Full send on the teeter-totter. It was remarkable how quickly students picked up these challenging skills.
Looking ahead to the 2021/2022 school year, we’re hoping to expand the program from four schools to six, exposing more kids to safe, skilled instruction. We hope that as the children in these communities learn to love riding, more safe cycling infrastructure - be it trails, pumptracks, or even just bike lanes on roads - will develop in these towns as a result of more folks being on bikes. We also hope that all these kids continue to ride bikes as they grow and they benefit from the same freedom afforded by a bike that LeBron felt growing up in Akron.
A huge thank you goes out to the Northern Forest Center for funding the program, Alex Wright Cedar Products for the wood, teachers and administrators at the Albany Community School, Craftsbury Academy, the Glover Community School, and Wolcott Elementary for letting us try this out with your students, and finally to the Craftsbury Outdoor Center for the support and freedom to launch this new venture.