A local bicycling advocacy group is unveiling an expanded program this weekend that aims to teach as many children and adults as possible to cycle smart.
Cycle Smart, a program of Dream Ride Projects, hopes to teach children to ride their bicycles and to ride comfortably, even in traffic.
Skills taught in monthly bicycle derbies, in an area of the Toys-R-Us parking lot, 1430 Harrisburg Pike, Lancaster, will be reinforced with weekly road rides led by certified cycling instructors.
The program also seeks to train more adults to ride on the road, both with their children and as instructors themselves.
“That’s what we want, for people to start enjoying cycling again,” Dream Ride founder and director Mike Ridgeway said this morning. Ridgeway believes many people are uneasy riding bicycles in traffic. He hopes to raise their comfort level and get more people riding bicycles more often. That will make things better for everyone, he believes.
“There are so many ripple effects from this,” he said. Having children ride more helps combat childhood obesity and will eventually make them safer drivers. Having adults ride with their children and on their own will produce a fitter population and reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.
“The quality of life will improve if we become a more bicycling and bicycle-friendly community, and not just a recreational bicycling community,” he said. Ridgeway would like to see bicycles used for errands, commuting to work and going to school.
The program begins this evening with an adult riding course, the League of American Bicyclists’ Road 1 course, being called Adult Cycle Smart. The ride begins at 6 p.m. at the Toys-R-Us store. If rain continues, the group will meet at the Cycle Circle bicycle shop, 131 N. Plum St., for a bicycle maintenance class. The first derby for children will be at 1 p.m. Saturday, at the toy store. An optional group road ride follows at 4 p.m.
Cycle Smart for Tots instruction, for very young, beginning cyclists, will be offered at 3 p.m. All the programs at Toys-R-Us are free and open to the public.
The Friday afternoon rides and Saturday derbies will be held monthly through August. Saturday and Sunday rides will be held weekly. Wednesday evening rides will be held during the summer.
Ridgeway emphasized this morning that the derbies will introduce concepts of riding. The road rides reinforce those concepts. Along with being exercise and recreation, the rides have an educational component, he said. Certified instructors will give riders tips as they cycle.
“That’s the only way people are going to really learn to ride their bikes, it’s if they acutally go out and ride their bikes,” Ridgeway said.
The rides, through Club Cycle Smart, will attempt to offer diversity with road and rail-trail rides and, this fall, cyclocross, time trial and mountain bike rides. The rides will also come without the pressure on slower riders to keep up. Faster riders will loop back. Rides will be no more than 30 miles.
Along with the events at the Toys-R-Us store, there will also be Cycle Smart education offered Saturday mornings, June 2-July 14, at the Lititz Recreation Center. That program is geared for children age 9-14. Because the program is being offered through the Rec Center, there is a $25 fee for center members or a $35 fee for non-members.
The expanded program is being advertised with a billboard campaign, that began more than a month ago, and brochures. That campaign is being funded with federal transportation enhancement funds of nearly $44,000 and $10,200 from the program.
Anyone wishing more information can call Ridgeway, at 397-2503, or visit CycleSmartUSA.org
