This was the final club ride and meeting of the Leroy Greene Academy Bike Club. Fundraising allowed all train tickets to be purchased for a one-way ride to Davis. The organizers of Loopalooza gave us Back-to-Sac tickets for the train ride back, a program sponsored by Davis merchants.


First stop, pastries from Village Bakery:

Adam’s 5th grade teacher from Two Rivers joined us for part of the ride.


Station 1 (of ten on the 12-mile bicycle trail loop around the city of Davis):

This station featured about 15 different (or wacky) types of cycles:





Face (or arm painting) station:



I maintained a safe distance from all the action at this station:


Leaving our chalk messages:

Skills station. Our club members were experts here, including the figure-8.


Bicycle repair station:

Lunch before we head for the train station:



This school year, the LGA Bike Club existed only because of a generous donation from a local church. All funding sources to keep this program going have dried up, so this event was probably the last one for this bicycle club coach. I will miss this group of boys a lot and the supportive dads and ex-teachers who came along on our rides, but especially I will miss working with Megan McManus, the staff advisor.

Sadly, this is all I got today. No one showed up. Everyone is busy, interests are changing. Baseball is still happening and one of our faithful club members is on the team. Another just got a guitar and is going to his friend’s house this afternoon to start a band.

Here we are, ready to ride to Natomas Marketplace, have a hamburger at In N Out Burger, and stop at Tanzanite Skate Park. Except NO one showed up except for staff advisor Megan McManus and me. So Megan and I visited for a half-hour or so and then went on with the rest of our day. I call this receiving a “gift of time”.

We started at Leroy Greene Academy, rode across the Jibboom Street Bridge at Discovery Park,

through Old Sacramento to Marie’s Donuts at the corner of Freeport Blvd and Vallejo.

We met up with Elle Steele and Kidical Mass. They were having a group ride from Marie’s Donuts to William Land Park, about 2 miles away. The variety of child-carrying bicycles was amazing.

The Kidical Mass group went to Fairytale Town while our bike club went to the Sacramento Zoo.

A lion and a jaguar.

L-R: LaTraye, Andrew, staff advisor Megan McManus

A very successful 20-mile ride.

Odin was so excited to show me he didn’t need training wheels and could ride his bike really well. The grass in the backyard at the G St house is really tall (and needs to be mowed or plowed soon) – a challenge to ride through the first few times to make bike trails.
It was important to keep pedaling no matter what. Getting started again was difficult.

And then I went for a pre-ride of the route for an upcoming LGA Club Ride. Vallejo Street: narrow two-lane road with no bike lane or shoulder which means our group will take control of the lane during this stretch.

Destination #1:

Destination #2:

The next step is to create a ride plan to share with students, parents, and Megan, the staff advisor.

Various clubs were set up around the outside edge of the cafeteria.

The Bike Club chose Ireland. Actually, Megan McManus, the staff advisor, chose the country since she has a particular fondness for all thing Irish.

LaTraye supervised the Foosball table.

The smoothie bike was a big hit!

It didn’t take much pedaling to make a good smoothie, maybe 30 seconds.

A YouTube video to see the smoothie bike in action:

7:15 am: it was early and chilly. Treats and hot chocolate helped.

When exiting the bike trail on the north side

the expectation is the driver/walker will go 100 feet east and cross at the crosswalk

then go 100 feet west to rejoin the trail on the other side of a divided 4-lane road with heavy 50-mph traffic.

Observations:
1. 50% of the users from 7:15-8:15 crossed illegally.

2. No students used this route to get to school.
3. Cars don’t stop for anyone waiting at the crosswalk.
4. Neither teacher nor students were late for school.

At 3:15, most students head for the gate

but an intrepid few stay after school and go for a quick fun bike ride. Along the way, we stopped for a bit to appreciate the recent improvement to the bike trail on the west side of I-5 just north of W El Camino Ave. L-R: Staff advisor Ms McManus, Xavier, Jack, Andrew.

The skill we practiced several times was entering a roadway safely. We did this as individual drivers and crossed one at a time. I went first, Megan reinforced good choices and crossed as the last rider. This was Xavier and Andrew’s first ride, we were extra careful. Reward! Baskin-Robbins.

Yum!

Time to head back. One last time carefully across 5 lanes of busy traffic. We had a great time!

With support from WALKSacramento, I sent out a press release about the success of the Leroy F Greene Academy Bike Club’s initiation of a $15,000 bike trail improvement. Unexpectedly, within 10 minutes of sending out the email, I was contacted by Jouron Bourque of iHeartMedia in Sacramento. Today, I drove to their local station headquarters to record an interview.

Fun! The segment was aired between 5-7 am on Sunday December 14.