|
RIDING AT BIKE WORKS
At Bike Works we ride bikes to inspire youth, motivate them, and to get them excited about bicycling. Putting youth on a bike gives them a sense of empowerment in their own learning and the tools for success in life. Bicycling can be made accessible to almost every youth, and a fun ride will give them a memorable experience and potentially turn them into committed cyclists for life.
Street Burners
Our Street Burners Rides Club expands our activities to keep youth involved at Bike Works after they have earned their bicycle or have graduated from our classes. In 2002, the alumni youth of Bike Works chose their own name for this club and the Street Burners were born! Earn-a-Bike graduates ride bikes together to celebrate their hard work, enjoy bicycling, and practice safe riding skills. Youth have been mountain biking, BMX riding, road riding, building specialty "chopper" bikes, playing bike polo, and learning safety skills in bicycle rodeos. Bike Works keeps a fleet of bikes tuned up to lend out to riders if they haven't yet earned their own bike and still want to ride. Every year Bike Works offers 100 different types of after-school and weekend activities for the youth to stay active on their bikes, and we consistently ride over 5,000 miles each year on these neighborhood journeys.
Bike Polo
Hard-court bike polo originated in Seattle around a decade ago; since then the sport has grown throughout the world. Bike Works has been offering bicycle polo activities as part of the Street Burners youth alumni club since 2006. The youth who had been playing polo here over the years were featured players during exhibition matches at the North American Championships in 2009, and the World Championships in 2011. In early 2011, a group of three enthusiastic Bike Works youth traveled down to Portland for the Cascadia Regional and performed as a team against players from around the region.
The game is played with three people on a team – and the playing field consists of tennis court sized arenas. Players most often use homemade mallets made out of ski poles with plastic pipe on the end. Bikes are normally single speed, with either 26 inch, or 700c wheels. Players try to hit a tennis ball sized street hockey ball into nets that are around handlebar height tall and bike length wide.
In Seattle, polo is huge. The city has recently designated two converted tennis courts for polo – one on Capitol Hill and one in the Central District -and players can be seen on at least one of these courts every day. In 2011, Seattle hosted the World Championships, and had 3 teams place in the top 10. At the North American Championships, a Seattle team took home the crown. A city with such an active scene is a great place to start your polo career!
Major Taylor Project/RIDES Club
In celebration of Major (Marshall) Taylor's 130th anniversary birthday, in 2008 we began discussions with a group of bicycle educators interested in starting a Seattle-wide Major Taylor Bike Club. Born in 1878, Taylor became the first African American World Champion cyclist after facing much racism in the cycling community he overcame huge barriers and was a true hero for many. The idea behind this program is to encourage youth from diverse backgrounds to get on their bikes and keep pedaling. The Major Taylor Project is a consortium of youth organizations, schools, and communities who are all starting and running their own bike clubs. At Bike Works this project has become the RIDES Club, a program that is open to anyone who wants to join and expands the options of activities for youth who want to be involved in biking at Bike Works. This club is part of an eight week program for youth who want to increase their road riding skills and get out and explore their communities. In 2009 we offered a RIDES club as part of an internship program with the Seattle Girls' School, as well as two RIDES summer camps - also known as RIDES (ride, investigate, discover the environment & society) - where youth explore the urban environment by bicycle and create their own maps of the city. Let's honor our history and ride bikes together!
Bicycle Passports
Our bicycle passports program and our bike ride wall at Bike Works gets youth thinking about bicycling for transportation. As they log their bicycle miles around town (outside of Bike Works) - they use a personalized score card to travel along the bicycle wall in our classroom, and they can also track their rides in a bicycle passport. The youth are given the chance to win incentive prizes for every five miles they ride, with extra points for biking to school or to get to Bike Works. Bicycle passports and the bike riding wall get kids out of the car and onto their bikes to get around town.
|
 |
