Event to help you get, and stay, on your bike

A BIKE riding and road safety session targeted towards teenagers will be on tomorrow (Saturday, March 15) at the Long Gully BMX Track.

The event is being organised by Long Gully Neighbourhood Centre in partnership with Bike Bendigo, Freewheeling Fun, Healthy Loddon Campaspe, Sports Focus, and funded through VicRoads’ Community Road Safety Grants.

It comes after two after school bike repair workshops were held by Freewheeling Fun at Long Gully Neighbourhood Centre.

The centre’s co-ordinator, Kerry Parry, said the program to help kids improve their bike and road safety skills has been going for the past year after the organisation saw a need in the community and they received the funding.

“We had heard from one of the local youth groups that a number of their kids had bikes but didn’t know how to repair them.

“We felt there was a need that we could try to work towards addressing.”

Through Healthy Loddon Campaspe, the City of Greater Bendigo, installed the bike repair station at the BMX track.

“Creek Street here is one of the really tricky streets for anybody to cross safely,” Ms Parry.

A member of the charity Freewheeling Fun, Rod Symes, said people donate bikes to them which they then fix up and give away for an optional monetary donation if they can afford it.

“We’ve been asked to come out and demonstrate bike maintenance to the children,” Mr Symes said.

“Simple maintenance tasks like inflating tyres and fixing punctures, putting chains back on, adjusting the saddle light, just things like that.”

The event will start with an education session on bike safety from 10am to 1pm and Freewheeling Fun will demonstrate how to use the new bike tools at the track from 12.30pm to 1.30pm.

Tomorrow’s event is free, and includes a barbecue, toddler’s trikes circuit, music, and giveaways.