Guest Blog by San Carlos + Belmont Local Team leaders Sonia Elkes and Andrew Hsu

On a mild, sunny January morning, over 150 children and adults participated in the first-ever Week of the Family Bike Care & Safety Fair at Central Middle School blacktop, and over 100 joined for the first Week of the Family “Tour de Family” community ride through San Carlos. This morning of family cycling was the latest event added to a long-standing San Carlos tradition, Week of the Family (www.sancarlosweekofthefamily.org).

The goal of the event was to reinforce safe biking skills and empower riders with basic bike maintenance skills while supporting families, building community, and inspiring safer streets. And it worked! in addition to offering free bike safety checks, the event focused on teaching basic maintenance skills — Tire inflation, chain lubrication, seat adjustment, locks, bike washing — as well as basic safety skills – helmet fit, yielding to pedestrians, safe riding on streets.

Kids who had their bike tires pumped to full pressure at one of the maintenance stations were shocked to discover how much easier and fun it was to ride a bike on properly inflated tires. Adults who opted for a free rear-view mirror and installation discovered how a simple device could greatly improve their on-road safety.

It was certainly a thrill to see the power of “if you build it they will come” in action. But best of all, the success of this event truly highlighted the desire in for safe bicycling in the San Carlos community. We hope to continue working with the San Carlos civic leadership to bring other cycling-focused activities as well as make this bike event part of future Week of the Family events!

The bike event was organized and chaired by Sonia Elkes, founder of San Carlos Bikes (www.sancarlosbikes.org) and co-lead of the San Carlos-Belmont local team for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (www.bikesiliconvalley.org). There were 40 volunteers supporting the event, which included four bike shops, Zack’s Performance Bikes of Belmont & San Mateo, Sports Basement of Redwood City, Chain Reaction Bicycles of Redwood City, and REI of San Carlos. Additional bike maintenance support was provided by the Silicon Valley Bike Exchange, who taught flat tire repair, and Bay Area BikeMobile, which contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to provide free bike repair and education services. Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition provided high level logistics consulting. Jess DeLeuw, PE teacher at St Charles School, led the bike safety skills instruction on the chalked course in the school playground.

Here’s a Facebook post from San Carlos Mayor, Sara McDowell, on the event, with pictures.
Here’s a Facebook post from Andrew Hsu, co-organizer for this event and Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition Board Member as well as local SVBC San Carlos-Belmont Team co-leaders.
Here’s a Facebook post with photos from Maylyn Co, celebrity LEGO minifigure guest, as the bike safety education theme is LEGO. She works with Stanford Injury Prevention, who supplied us with outstanding

(Note, all the LEGO-themed bike safety ed materials used were created in collaboration with Palo Alto Safe Routes to School leader Rosie Mesterhazy and reviewed by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department. The full training can be viewed, downloaded at www.bikesandbricks.org. It can be copied, revised, edited and freely shared. This presentation is used by numerous Safe Routes to School educators throughout the country.)