iRide @ Bike-to-School Week

Cycling BC’s iRide program visited over 950 students from eight schools last week during the province-wide Bike to School week. The Okanagan iRide team enjoyed a second week in Armstrong last week, with a second year visit to Highland Park Elementary and an after-school program for both schools. This was a returning school from 2015 and the students were very excited for our return.

This year Helena “Heli” Coney and Brandon “B-Magic” Archer joined iRide Co-ordinator Ben Chaddock at Highland Park.  Ben reports:

We brought some new stunts this year and of course the Tower of Power game. They loved it! We also ran an after-school program for interested students from both Highland Park and Armstrong Elementary, who I visit for the first time just the week prior. This after-school program allowed us the opportunity to go for bike rides, work on more challenging skills and help the students find local friends who wish to ride more.  I look forward to developing this successful program model at future in-school events.

The Vancouver iRide team of Wes Ochitwa  and Anna Bradford visited John G. Diefenbaker for the second year, and TE Scott, a first-year school for the iRide program: Anna reports:

The kids at Diefenbaker were eager to learn new skills and techniques, they were especially curious about road riding safety and signals as many of them mentioned they ride along the dyke to school. With their great behaviour we were able to cover all sorts of grounds from switching gears to hand signals, dismounts and remounts, tight turns, “bear” and “gorilla” attacks while finishing off with some team building pairs riding activities on the final day with Coach Colby.

The last 3 days of the week, Colby and I headed out to Surry to visit T.E Scott Elementary.  On the final day we set up a big obstacle course for everyone to ride through, it was so much fun and everyone was so excited that even the Kindergarten class and Primary classes came out in the afternoon to watch and cheer on their older siblings and friends! The kids were so excited and appreciative that the principle wrote Colby and I a nice card noting that she had the halls have been full of students sharing “I love iRide, it is so awesome because I don’t have my own bike!” and “I never want Banana and Colby to leave, it’s way too much fun, best program in school ever!”

When I go on the teeter totter, I’m not biking anymore, it’s so sweet that I fly!  – Markus, Grade 7 at John G. Diefenbaker Elementary

Wes notes:

Whew! Bike-to-school week was huge this year! I had the chance to visit 3 different schools over the 5 days, including Langley Fundamental Elementary School in Murrayville, Langley, Archibald Blair close to home in Richmond and Henry Hudson in central Vancouver.   At Langley Fundamental, I was super impressed with the natural ability of the students! As the final day, we played capture the flag on bikes, and challenged ourselves with a twisty obstacle course.

At Archibald Blair Elementary in Richmond I joined forces with Coaches J-Magic (Jason Delaney) and Mo-Magic (Maureen Prentice). Again I was thrilled to be so welcomed by such respectful and willing staff and students ranging from grades four through seven, not to mention one of the nicest stretches of grass fields I’ve had the chance to work on. The local maple trees and bike paths made for great riding.

At Henry Hudson, the students ranged from grade 2-6, providing a fun challenge as a coach. However the quick course changes needed to maximize the learning for this wide range of ages and abilities was easy with the abundance terrain available. This school is over 100 years old and as you can imagine it offered a very castle-like feel as we played follow the leader under brick tunnels, through gardens and dirt banked hills.

Events this week took place at Kootenay Orchards Elementary in Cranbrook, Highland Park Elementary in Armstrong, Langley Fundamental Elementary and T E Scott Elementary in greater Vancouver.  Events also took place in Richmond at Archibald Blair Elementary and John G Diefenbaker Elementary, with visits to Discovery Passage and Ecole Willow Point in Comox.

iRide summer camps are also now available to book. At this time, iRide is taking bookings for 4 different week-long camp in Vancouver, Burnaby and Squamish.  To find out more about these events, please visit our summer camp page here.

iRide is also currently accepting bookings for the 2016-2017 autumn session. Bookings for the 2017 spring will open on September 15th. To learn more, please visit the iRide page here. To become an iRide newsletter recipient and stay up-to-date on all future iRide events in your area, please go here. If you’re a fan of Cycling BC’s iRide program, check us out on Twitter, Instagram, or Donate to support our programs in your area. To learn more about booking a future event, please contact us at iRide@cyclingbc.net or 1-604-BC-iRide.