After spending a week and a half in Copenhagen this past summer, one can see how biking to work could be both healthy and fun. I don’t do the “clean energy” schtick, but I do 100% agree with the benefits of moving and staying healthy, and instilling that in young people. Being healthy is a way of life. Indeed, we are the compilation of lots of small decisions when it comes to eating healthy!
With that in mind I ran across Sam Balto’s Bike Bus movement in Portland, Oregon. Yes, I get that Portland is a a city with lots of problems, but this isn’t one of them. The Bike Bus is basically where kids and supervising adults get together once per week, and ride their bikes to school in one huge group. No data conferences. No walk throughs. Just a community getting together, meeting at a central location, and taking a long, single street into school for the day. It is learning without the boundaries of teaching to a test. And it is fun!!!
I actually follow Coach Balto on Facebook – link here. This is how you “do” school. In Kingsport(and anywhere in the TRI), there are dozens of schools which could pull this off. With so many community schools in Kingsport, there are plenty of neighborhood streets(slight downhill used in this Portland neighborhood) which could be used.
These types of morning exercise groups do work. I was at a sectional, high school XC meet last week. In the top 20 of the boys race, 20% of the all-section runners came from ONE elementary school in Kingsport(GWES!). Why? In part, they had(maybe still do!) a morning running club which was followed-up by fantastic middle-school coaching later on. That morning running program has paid off in spades! There were several more runners in the top 20 of both the girls and boys sectionals from that same elementary running club program. Additionally, I am nearly sure there are also female runners who were all-section from that same program. In short, there were gobs of runners from that one, GWES running club. That is kind of amazing.
Things like the morning Bike Bus Movement and morning running clubs don’t cost a ton of money. But the pay-off (ROI – return on investment) is incredible. Community involvement, social skills, sowing the seeds for future athletic programs, and just having fun are all great consequences.
One cool thing that Coach Balto does is that he invites community and national celebrities to ride with them. They keep things simple. They have a great communication system. They have built in safety protocols. And they ride to school once per week. Watch these videos, and I am not sure I can think of many ways better to start a school day!
Licensed thumbnail photo to Daniel Teemant
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