In a copyrighted story in the Fort Collins Coloradoan on August 24th, staff writer Trevor Hughes reports on the initiative of the City's assistant bike coordinator, Molly North, to educate bicyclists on the use of bike boxes at the corner of East Plum and Shields Street.
The video tells the story.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Teaching Young Children How to Ride a Bicycle
After publishing the following Smart Cycling column in the Fort Collins Coloradoan in July I recieved the following testimonial from the mother of a six year old in Fort Collins:
"I just wanted to thank you for your very informative column in the Coloradoan this summer about how to teach your child to ride a bike!
My daughter received her first bike at age 3 from Santa and the first time she fell off, she refused to get back on for 3 years....Last year she started to ride it again to school with her training wheels on and was laughed at by some of her school mates. I could see how this made her feel sad(she cried) and she was determined to try and ride without her training wheels. This was her goal for the summer but once again, she was scared to try. Last week, we took her pedals off and lowered her seat and she learned to get her balance gliding around our cul de sac for 2 days and then she asked her dad to put the pedals back on and she zoomed off like a pro! You should have seen the look of pride on her face for having accomplished this! She's eager to ride her bike every day now! Thank you so much!"
The original column is here:
Parents teach their kids to balance and ride a bike but they often forget to teach them how to stop. As you might imagine, that can be a problem. Rules of the road are another important element that kids need to learn and one that parents don’t always teach.
Two weeks ago I wrote about teaching small children to ride by taking the pedals off their bike. Then I went camping in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains where we had a bungalow near the playground. I watched with amazement as a tiny German girl zipped around the playground on her perfectly fitted mountain bike. She had perfect technique, knew when to stand on the pedals to go up an incline, and hesitated only briefly when her father suggested she take the plunge down a steep incline.
When I spoke to her father about her skills I learned that she was four years old and has three years experience on bikes. Just the day before she had completed a forty-mile ride around the Sella Mountain Massif on her tag-along behind her father. That ride included four mountain passes and about six thousand feet of vertical climbing. Dad was exhausted but daughter was the most active kid on the playground.
So I asked how she developed her skills. He explained that when she was 18 months old she learned to balance on a “balance bike.” The name in German is “laufrad,” literally a “walk-bike.” Then at two and a half she switched to a bike with pedals and there was no holding her back. (Father was also proud to say that she had skied sixty-five days last winter!)
Balance bikes are a great alternative to removing the pedals from a small bike to teach kids how to balance. If you buy a balance bike, though, try and find one with a hand brake that works. If kids learn to use that before moving on to a bike with pedals, they will be that much farther along in learning how to stop. Alternatively, they will use their feet to stop which is ok, but not the best solution.
Once you do move your child to a real bicycle with pedals, teach them how to get on safely and to begin pedaling with their right foot in a power position. This is essential as you don’t want them to think that they always need to be able to touch the ground with two feet.
Kids who learn to ride at an early age will discover a freedom and independence that may drive mother crazy. So it is important that along with handling skills, they learn basic rules of the road, including, keeping to the right on the sidewalk, stopping at the edge of the road and at driveways, and stopping as well as “going.” Take them often to the park, including parks with BMX dirt tracks and lots of multi-use trails as in Spring Creek Community Park.
"I just wanted to thank you for your very informative column in the Coloradoan this summer about how to teach your child to ride a bike!
My daughter received her first bike at age 3 from Santa and the first time she fell off, she refused to get back on for 3 years....Last year she started to ride it again to school with her training wheels on and was laughed at by some of her school mates. I could see how this made her feel sad(she cried) and she was determined to try and ride without her training wheels. This was her goal for the summer but once again, she was scared to try. Last week, we took her pedals off and lowered her seat and she learned to get her balance gliding around our cul de sac for 2 days and then she asked her dad to put the pedals back on and she zoomed off like a pro! You should have seen the look of pride on her face for having accomplished this! She's eager to ride her bike every day now! Thank you so much!"
 |
| An Italian child learns to ride among the pigeons in old town Bergamo (Bergamo Alta). |
The original column is here:
Parents teach their kids to balance and ride a bike but they often forget to teach them how to stop. As you might imagine, that can be a problem. Rules of the road are another important element that kids need to learn and one that parents don’t always teach.
Two weeks ago I wrote about teaching small children to ride by taking the pedals off their bike. Then I went camping in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains where we had a bungalow near the playground. I watched with amazement as a tiny German girl zipped around the playground on her perfectly fitted mountain bike. She had perfect technique, knew when to stand on the pedals to go up an incline, and hesitated only briefly when her father suggested she take the plunge down a steep incline.
When I spoke to her father about her skills I learned that she was four years old and has three years experience on bikes. Just the day before she had completed a forty-mile ride around the Sella Mountain Massif on her tag-along behind her father. That ride included four mountain passes and about six thousand feet of vertical climbing. Dad was exhausted but daughter was the most active kid on the playground.
So I asked how she developed her skills. He explained that when she was 18 months old she learned to balance on a “balance bike.” The name in German is “laufrad,” literally a “walk-bike.” Then at two and a half she switched to a bike with pedals and there was no holding her back. (Father was also proud to say that she had skied sixty-five days last winter!)
Balance bikes are a great alternative to removing the pedals from a small bike to teach kids how to balance. If you buy a balance bike, though, try and find one with a hand brake that works. If kids learn to use that before moving on to a bike with pedals, they will be that much farther along in learning how to stop. Alternatively, they will use their feet to stop which is ok, but not the best solution.
Once you do move your child to a real bicycle with pedals, teach them how to get on safely and to begin pedaling with their right foot in a power position. This is essential as you don’t want them to think that they always need to be able to touch the ground with two feet.
Kids who learn to ride at an early age will discover a freedom and independence that may drive mother crazy. So it is important that along with handling skills, they learn basic rules of the road, including, keeping to the right on the sidewalk, stopping at the edge of the road and at driveways, and stopping as well as “going.” Take them often to the park, including parks with BMX dirt tracks and lots of multi-use trails as in Spring Creek Community Park.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Bicycle Safety Town is Coming to Fort Collins
The City's web site explains the project in detail beginning with the following:
"What if there was a place your family could practice safe cycling skills? The recently adopted Bicycle Safety Education Plan recommended the City construct a bicycle safety town to do just that. A bicycle safety town is a “miniature city,” complete with streets, bike lanes, and traffic signs. Families, adults, and children can all use the town to practice safe cycling skills as well as participate in classes hosted by the City and other community partners." (http://www.fcgov.com/transportationplanning/bikesafetytown.php)
Further documents identify safety towns in different communities across the country. Frisco, Texas, for example has a safety town run by the fire department. They have formal educational programs for different age groups, including:
- Kindergartners: Introduction to 911and emergency services;
- 1st grade: Motor Vehicle and Pedestrian Safety;
- 2nd grade: Fire Safety and Burn Prevention;
- 3rd grade: Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety;
- 4th grade: Severe Weather and Disaster Preparedness; and
- 5th grade: Internet Safety and Personal Information Awareness.
As a part of the planning for this bike safety town City staff has posted a survey online. The purpose of the survey is to help staff "understand how you would like to use the town and where would be a good location." The deadline for your input is August 19, 2011.
The City's Bicycle Advisory Committee has suggested that the bike town be placed in an existing City park, centrally located with easy access by bike trail and Transfort services. The sites being considered are about one acre in size in such parks as Rolland Moore, Edora, Beattie, and Troutman.
Send your ideas to City staff by completing the questionaire at this link.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Make your Town a Better Bike Town!
by Rick Price
Mia Birk’s book Joyride: Pedaling toward a Healthier Planet, is a “how-to manual” for creating a first class bicycle community. Anyone in government or anyone interested in bicycle advocacy would benefit from reading Birk as a way to put their community on the right track to becoming bicycle friendly.
Birk recounts a perfect storm of events when she became Bicycle Coordinator in Portland in 1993. The US Congress had just funded the first six-year federal transportation package that included a small allocation for “Transportation Enhancements.” “Enhancements” were meant to fund transit, bicycling and walking facilities as Congress attempted to counter the “roads only” policies of state departments of transportation. This enabled states and cities like Fort Collins, Boulder in Colorado and Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland, Oregon to write bicycle plans and to hire bicycle coordinators.
In Portland in 1990 the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) had been founded, and was to become one of the most active advocacy groups in the nation. Earl Blumenauer, now Congressman from Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District and founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, was Portland’s Commissioner of Public Utilities. With Blumenauer’s support and with the backing of the BTA Birk set out to make Portland, a city of 500,000 people, a friendlier place to ride a bicycle.
As she explains in Joyride Birk had a series of revelations during the first years of her job that opened her eyes to the challenges she faced. Despite enjoying great support in the bicycle community, she noted that “if I spend my time preachin’ to the gospel choir, the bicycle revolution isn’t going to spread very far.” Additionally, when Portland’s traffic engineers suggested that rather than stripe bicycle lanes, they get the police to enforce the law to encourage more cyclists, she noted “the police won’t even talk to me [as bicycle coordinator] let alone” enforce the rules of the road to protect cyclists.
Another revelation came after her third annual bike to work day when Birk asked herself, “is this helping to get more people out riding? Is my time best spent running events like this, or working on bikeway projects?” The answer, she found, was that she needed to mobilize the non-bicyclists in town, build bike paths and lanes, and to become more of a catalyst in bringing people together to change the culture in order to get reluctant cyclists on their bikes. “It’s not enough to adopt a Bicycle Plan” she wrote, “we’ve got to retrain all the humans involved, both inside and outside government.”
So Birk began with neighborhood meetings at Denny’s. Then she met with the Lions Club. Once she was fully underway she was meeting with “business groups, ethnic groups, neighborhood associations, school groups, churches” and as she explains it, “pretty much anyone who” would listen in a series of sixty meetings across Portland.
The results of Birk’s work are impressive to the degree that Joyride should be required reading for anyone who wants to see bicycle ridership increase in their community.
Mia Birk’s book Joyride: Pedaling toward a Healthier Planet, is a “how-to manual” for creating a first class bicycle community. Anyone in government or anyone interested in bicycle advocacy would benefit from reading Birk as a way to put their community on the right track to becoming bicycle friendly.
Birk recounts a perfect storm of events when she became Bicycle Coordinator in Portland in 1993. The US Congress had just funded the first six-year federal transportation package that included a small allocation for “Transportation Enhancements.” “Enhancements” were meant to fund transit, bicycling and walking facilities as Congress attempted to counter the “roads only” policies of state departments of transportation. This enabled states and cities like Fort Collins, Boulder in Colorado and Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland, Oregon to write bicycle plans and to hire bicycle coordinators.
In Portland in 1990 the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) had been founded, and was to become one of the most active advocacy groups in the nation. Earl Blumenauer, now Congressman from Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District and founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, was Portland’s Commissioner of Public Utilities. With Blumenauer’s support and with the backing of the BTA Birk set out to make Portland, a city of 500,000 people, a friendlier place to ride a bicycle.
As she explains in Joyride Birk had a series of revelations during the first years of her job that opened her eyes to the challenges she faced. Despite enjoying great support in the bicycle community, she noted that “if I spend my time preachin’ to the gospel choir, the bicycle revolution isn’t going to spread very far.” Additionally, when Portland’s traffic engineers suggested that rather than stripe bicycle lanes, they get the police to enforce the law to encourage more cyclists, she noted “the police won’t even talk to me [as bicycle coordinator] let alone” enforce the rules of the road to protect cyclists.
Another revelation came after her third annual bike to work day when Birk asked herself, “is this helping to get more people out riding? Is my time best spent running events like this, or working on bikeway projects?” The answer, she found, was that she needed to mobilize the non-bicyclists in town, build bike paths and lanes, and to become more of a catalyst in bringing people together to change the culture in order to get reluctant cyclists on their bikes. “It’s not enough to adopt a Bicycle Plan” she wrote, “we’ve got to retrain all the humans involved, both inside and outside government.”
So Birk began with neighborhood meetings at Denny’s. Then she met with the Lions Club. Once she was fully underway she was meeting with “business groups, ethnic groups, neighborhood associations, school groups, churches” and as she explains it, “pretty much anyone who” would listen in a series of sixty meetings across Portland.
The results of Birk’s work are impressive to the degree that Joyride should be required reading for anyone who wants to see bicycle ridership increase in their community.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Fort Collins to Launch Share the Road Campaign
 |
| Fort Collins will launch a share the road campaign urging all road users to be tolerant of one another and to share the road appropriately. Watch for these banners to launch this campaign. |
Fort Collins participated in a pilot project over the winter to explore community solutions to making roads safer for all users. Participants in the ad hoc committee that met included bicycle advocates, injury prevention practitioners, pedestrians, and drivers education instructors, among others. The share the road banner above will be displayed in the community to publicize the campaign. Fort Collins and Colorado Springs were selected for this project because of the high rates of bicycle crashes in the two communities.
May is Bike to School Safety Month in Fort Collins
By Rick Price , Ph.D.
A group of middle school students from Dan Schrom's PE class at Lincoln Middle School poses on a bike field trip along the Poudre Trail in Fort Collins. The students had three weeks of bike safety lessons in April 2011 under the City's Safe Routes to School program in collaboration with the Fort Collins Bike Co-op.
May 2 – 6 is Bike to school week at Lesher Middle School where math teacher Rob Breshears is coordinating the Biking Vikings for the third year. Ride your bike every day this week and get a variety of perks including a free t-shirt, a free light or bell, a bike tune-up from Full Cycle bike mechanics, breakfast on Thursday, a demonstration of wheel building from Phoenix Cyclery, and a chance to win a free bike for all those who participated in Walking and Wheeling Wednesdays through April.
May 12 is the All-school Car-free Bike & Walk to School Day at Laurel Elementary. Bevin Barber-Campbell, a parent volunteer who moved from May 7 & May 14 (both Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 12 noon) the Bike Co-op will hold a kids bike swap and bike helmet clinic. While teaching in our schools the past four months I saw that 90% of the kids in town are riding bikes that are too small for them. So the bike swap will encourage families to bring bikes in that are too big or too small and trade them with a neighbor for the right sized bike. The swap will operate in the Bike Co-op parking lot at
May 19 – 20 Bauder Elementary will take their 4th and 5th graders on a bike field trip with PE teacher Chris West. This is the second year that Coach West has done this after three weeks of bicycle safety instruction in PE classes. Chris is providing a great example of how to teach our kids bike safety in regular classes and the kids all look forward to this field trip.
May 28, a Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. FCBikes is offering a Kids II bicycle clinic at Northside Aztlan Center for 5th and 6th graders. This is a seven-hour on-bike skills class that teaches safe cycling on neighborhood streets and bike trails. Contact FCBikes@FCGov.com for information.
Check with the main office in your kids’ schools for other events and begin planning now for your own bike to school events next year.
Mountain Avenue Sharrows (Shared Lane Arrows) Installed in Old Town Fort Collins
City of Fort Collins Streets Department workers install sharrows on East Mountain Avenue near the corner of Mountain and Remington on May 3, 2011. This is an innovation in Fort Collins where sharrows have been tested in the past but not installed in Old Town. "Sharrows" or shared lane arrows are large stencils that indicate to both motorists and bicyclists that the outside lanes on Mountain Avenue from Howes Street east to Riverside Avenue are to be shared and that bicyclists should use the center of the lane. This moves bicyclists out of the danger zone behind diagonally parked cars and into the center of the lane where they share the lane with cars single file rather than side by side.
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