Monday. Every morning 40 bikes had to be taken out of the classroom they were stored in. I was thankful for student volunteers who came to help. The girl on the left came EVERY morning!

Monday and Tuesday were street ride days. LCIs Elle (standing) and Pollyanna go over the ride routes with Gina, an LCI-in-training. Also volunteering to ride sweep (last rider) were several parent volunteers, teachers, and local residents.

ABCQuick Check, a must before riding.

The ratio for each group is no more than 8 students:2 adults. If we were short on volunteers, I took the smaller red group and stayed on the park trails and residential streets adjacent to the park. The red group always has more fun and rides farther than the other groups!Mr Young is a great supporter of Project Ride Smart and rode with us.Of course, at the end of the day, all those bicycles have to be tightly packed together in one teacher’s classroom (Thanks you Becky!) and then a long cable threaded through the frames and securely locked! Usually the other LCIs did this task while I took the students back to their classroom to gather colored jerseys and put away helmets.

Tuesday. The girl on the left learned to ride a bike at one of the after-school coaching sessions. While she was still a bit wobbly, her bike-riding skills improved daily.

Friday. While the 4th graders celebrated Gold Rush days by panning for iron pyrite and got lathered up for a shave (with a popsicle stick),the 5th graders had a small bike rodeo on the playground. Calf Roping:Paperboy. I made 3 additional vests on Wed/Th to have 4 altogether, but really needed 8 of them and LOTS more rolled newspapers. There were shredded bits of newspaper all over the playground by the time we were done – oops!We called this one the Triple 8.This is the BEST bicycle education program in the Sacramento region – I’m so glad I get to be a part of it!

Monday/Tuesday: Blacktop drills. Oh my, it’s hot standing on the blacktop for hours in 90-degree heat! Mellissa Meng, School Programs Manager for NNTMA, gives instructions for the next skill drill which I was about to demonstrate on my bike:
Hurray for LCIs-in-training! Gina worked with the red and blue group doing their ABCQuick Check:

Neal worked with the yellow/green group:
Good friends who wanted me to take their picture:
Friday: the first neighbor hood ride. Today’s weather was so different from Monday/Tuesday. Cold, windy and … rain for the last riding group of the day!While I shivered under a picnic table covering, the students ran off to the playground equipment. When the big downpour ended, we hurried back to campus. Fun at all times!

What a week this has been! Last Monday, I started teaching Project Ride Smart to five fifth-grade classes. Usually, I co-teach with another LCI (League Cycling Instructor), but this week I was mostly on my own. This year there were five classes instead of the usual four so I worked the entire school day. I only worked four days, but they were 8-9 hour days and I was EXHAUSTED by the end of the day. This retired person is definitely not used to working this hard. And I only took 2 pictures! Leah from the NNTMA office came on day 2 to help fit helmets. While I dragged one box of helmets on the sidewalk to the classroom, Leah stacked up two of them and carried them! Sheesh.

I got a few days work at Witter Ranch Elementary. Pollyanna and Elle were the co-leads of the 3 weeks of classes. Another LCI and I came in to help with blacktop drills and street rides.

ABCQuick Check:

Bikes are lined up while students observe a demonstration of the left-turn drill:

Scan, signal, scan, merge to left lane position, stop signal, stop, scan L-R-L, signal, go according the right-of-way rules.
Students were grouped by ability for the street rides. The red group stayed close to or on campus, while yellow, blue and green took to the neighborhood streets for additional instruction and practice for 3 days.