Bike safety

One of my first priorities when we got here was to get bikes for the kids (because they wanted them sooooo bad), and that was made urgent by the fact that there are 15+ kids in our cul-de-sac who like to ride bikes around.

My cousin gave us one for Nate that her kids had grown out of (and threw in a little scooter that Maya loves!) and a good friend passed on a Little Mermaid bike for Maya (rapture) and a tricycle with a handle for Eli. Nate needed training wheels since he's never really ridden a bike and is verrry cautious. We happened upon a set of training wheels at a local garage sale for a whopping $1, so that was that sorted. Maya's needed new tubes in the tires and training wheels as well, and we took it to a bike shop for those. Bikes, tick. Then we needed helmets!

My mom had picked up a flier for a cheap bike helmet event at a local church, so we headed over. It turned out to be a completely awesome family bike safety event. There was a bike clinic outside where bike mechanics were doing free tuneups. There was a bike course set up for riding. I didn't realise all of that was happening, so we didn't bring our bikes. We headed inside for the $5 helmets.

There was a series of bike safety areas set up. First stop was talking about different helmets and what they are used for.



Nate thought the (American) football helmet might be a cricket helmet which baffled the helmet woman. I thought it was very cute. They identified the motorcycle helmet and the bicycle helmet.

Next step was watching a helmet in action. The kids packed an egg in stuffing and packed it tightly into the helmet:





Well, most of them did ;o)



Then they dropped them from a great height:



Nate's egg didn't survive the fall which gave the woman an opportunity to talk about how even helmets can't protect against all head trauma, so it's very important to be road-safe.

More stations involved general road rules and safety, and how to tell if a bike is in riding order (tight chain, sturdy handlebars and seat, all in working order). Then it was on to the helmet fitting:







This was great, because I've never fitted a bike helmet and wouldn't have known how to do it properly. The fitters were suitably impressed by the sizes of my childrens' heads (no toddler helmet for my 2 year old's noggin, thank you very much).

And here Nate and Maya are in action after we got home: