VENTURA : Bike Rodeo Ropes In Students for Traffic Safety Challenges

Eleven-year-old Adam Maingot deftly steered his small mountain bike through a series of orange plastic cones set six feet apart on the blacktop at Poinsettia Elementary School in Ventura.

“It’s pretty easy,” the fifth-grader said, moments after notching a perfect score on the obstacle course. “I’ve done it before.”

Maingot was among more than 30 students who participated Monday in the campus’s bicycle rodeo, a six-part program designed to teach children to ride their bikes safely.

“Annually, a lot of children are injured riding their bikes,” said Principal Dan Munday. “So this is just another way to make them as bicycle-aware and as traffic-safe as possible.”

Judging by the goings-on Monday, the students will be among the safest around. The third- through fifth-graders were given a series of challenges designed to measure their bike-riding skills and teach them to be on the lookout for potential hazards.

The students were tested for balancing at slow speeds, double-circling, the obstacle course, steering, signaling and braking, and stopping. Students were awarded up to 10 points in each category, and given two bonus points for wearing a helmet.

The top scorers from Poinsettia and other schools that held similar rodeos this fall will compete in the All-City Bicycle Rodeo Finals to be held at Buena High School on Saturday.

“The goal is to educate the children to ride safely, and use helmets and bike lanes,” said Margaret E. Stallings, the bicycle safety program director for the city of Ventura, which hosts the events.

Twelve-year-old honor student Christopher Grasmugg was killed in September when he was struck by a passing car as he was riding his bicycle near Juanamaria Elementary School in Ventura. Stallings said she hopes a tragedy like that never happens again.

“Cars can’t always see the children, so we want them to be aware so they can be safe in their riding habits,” she said.

Donald Kennedy of the Automobile Club of Southern California spent much of the afternoon safety-checking as many bikes as he could.

“I’m looking at the general condition of the bike, checking for reflectors, head lights, making sure the brakes work,” Kennedy said, diagnosing loose spokes on the front wheel of a small mountain bike.