Third Grade Bike Rodeo

I volunteered to help with this year’s Third Grade Bike Rodeo in October and had a blast. Palo Alto has been doing these in every elementary school for 20 years or so, and they have a well-oiled system. The day before, we set up several stations on the playground at school, each set to teach the kids about a particular area of bike safety. We had lots of volunteers, District reps, and a police officer helping on the day of the rodeo. It was so great to see all the bikes lined up and ready.

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My job at my station was to ride along the blue-taped bike path, scan for cars over my shoulder, and then signal and make a left turn when it was safe.

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Here’s Finn learning hand signals at another station.

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And here’s his group at my station, getting the pre-ride instructions.

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I thought the day was wildly successful, both in terms of teaching the kids about safety and inspiring them to ride their bikes more. In the days following, I got lots of positive feedback from parents, and our Walk & Roll to School Day (which was the day after the Bike Rodeo) showed a big uptick in kids who biked to school.