BIKE VALET

Teaching kids bike safety

Bike Bakersfield hosts and teams with other organizations to provide bike rodeos for children. The rodeo is a hands-on technique to demonstrate bicycling skills and safety and is free to the public.

It is best to teach children the skills at an early age when they are still impressionable. In the past, it was thought that handing out pamphlets and providing a few “pep talks” were effective ways to teach bike safety. Bike Bakersfield believes that such passive approaches are not enough.

Interested in having a Bike Rodeo?
Bike Bakersfield will host a bike rodeo free of charge to the public. Contact Lauren Franconi at 661.321.9247 to plan a bike rodeo for your organization.

Volunteer for our next Bike Rodeo
We need volunteers and support to keep our programs running. If you would like to volunteer for our next bike rodeo send us an email with your name, phone number, and area of interest. Email us here, or call us at our office: 661.321.9247.

We see that it is important to get the children on their bikes and teach “real world” skills. The rodeo is a hands-on technique to demonstrate bicycling skills and safety. These lessons may be done on a playground, an empty parking lot, or any clean, paved and empty space (50’ x 100’).

The rodeo demonstrates the bicycling skills, discuss why they are important and then test them – and correct them if necessary. Parents are encouraged to be involved and continue the instructions at home.

Activities and skills taught include straight line riding, balance, stop sign and traffic signal behavior, obstacle (rocks, car doors) dodging, scanning for traffic, hand signals, and slalom control.