By Rani Henderson Hawaii Sport Events
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KAILUA-KONA — Pedals were spinning, and student faces were all smiles as People for Active Transportation Hawaii’s (PATH) popular Bike Education Program (Bike Ed) rolled through 4th-grade classrooms at Kahakai Elementary School.

The free three-day Bike Education program targets students ages 9 to 10 years across the island to teach valuable lifesaving lessons and the importance to always “Ride with Aloha” — safely, responsibly, and respectfully. Coincidentally, it tied perfectly with Kahakai’s school-wide behavior policy known as the “Three Bs” — Be Safe, Be Responsible, and Be Respectful.

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“We come to the schools for three days and teach the 4th graders the ABC’s (air, brakes, and chain) of safe cycling, and provide them all with free helmets that they can take home,” said Kelly Hudik, PATH’s chief operations officer. “The first day is a classroom session to get them familiar with hand signals and the parts of the bikes. The next two days, we bring a trailer of 32 bikes to the school and set up courses where the kids can practice riding. If they don’t know how to ride, we teach them! All of this is at no cost to the children or the schools. We want to make sure that we’re providing an equal shot for everyone to learn safe riding.”

Hudik said the number of schools and students PATH can impact depends on funding as PATH, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is 100% grant and donation funded. For the 2024-2025 school year, PATH is scheduled to attend 18 schools across the island and will have taught just shy of 1000 children. The goal is to be able to visit 18-21 schools and target 1000-1200 kids each school year. Last week, PATH partnered with Bike Works Kona to visit Kahakai Elementary School. Bike Works sponsored the Bike Ed classes for over 80 students and designed a great PATH/Bike Works sticker for each student helmet.

Hudik added that PATH instructors felt excitement with seeing the progression inthe students’ riding skills just between the first and second day of Bike Ed classes.

“The kids have a chance to get much more comfortable on the bikes and you canalmost see it ‘click’ in their faces when they either learn how to ride, or they find they’re feeling much more comfortable on the bikes,” Hudik said. “One of the best things for me to see is how they encourage each other — especially the riders who are a little more hesitant on the bikes or didn’t know how to ride and have learned over the two days — the camaraderie that’s formed is really encouraging. Finally, these are our future drivers and if we can make them aware of how to ride safely on the roads, not only will we encourage them to use that as an alternate mode of transportation, but they will understand to start looking for cyclists on the roads too.”

At the end of the three-day Bike Ed classes, Hudik hoped that students remember to look both ways for traffic as this translates for both walking and riding; be visible to riders and cars around them by signaling which direction they’re turning; and the importance of wearing their helmets that can save their life. Every student who participated in the BikeEd Program at Kahakai went home with a brand-new orange helmet.

“The Bike Ed program is one of the most public programs that PATH does, and the impact lasts much longer than those three days we’re at the schools,” Hudik said. “Not only is it giving kids a chance to open their eyes to the freedom of riding a bike, but it also creates an opportunity for the family to go out and ride together, and the kids to now impart to their parents how to ride safely. I encourage people to get involved in the program and see for themselves how much fun we have playing bikes with the students!”

Anyone interested in volunteering with PATH, donating to the program, or even sponsoring a school’s Bike Ed class, feel free to contact PATH at sharetheroad@pathhawaii.org