In the early hours of the morning Friday, April 6, 40 elementary school students gathered at the Cottonwood Kids Park on S. 12th Street. Mayor Tim Elinski got on his bike to travel down the road, and the caravan of children aged 8 to 10 followed him, turning on to Aspen Street, zipping past the Recreation Center, turning at Mingus and continuing to their final destination, Cottonwood Elementary School. An escort of Cottonwood police and fire employees cheered on the parade as it crossed through town.
Once the kids got to school, they participated in the ninth annual bike rodeo, a bicycle obstacle course on the school’s athletic fields. Kids competed through the course on their bikes, and six children chosen by their teachers for exemplary behavior received free mountain bikes, courtesy of the Verde Valley Cycling Coalition.
This was the first time that the Mayor’s Ride and Bike to School Day, a frequent annual event in Cottonwood, was tied to the annual bike rodeo as well, and the first time that the event happened with aid from the city’s police and fire departments.
For Elinski, the bike ride is just the latest in a series of efforts to make Cottonwood a welcoming home for cyclists.
“One of our strategic directives from our council retreat was that we support efforts to become a bikefriendly community and obtain silver status” from the League of American Bicyclists, Elinski said. “So certainly anything I can do to help support that effort is important.”
Beyond the bike ride on Friday, Cottonwood has made numerous efforts in recent years to become more accessible to human-powered travel. A Bicycle Advisory Committee, with cooperation from the city, Yavapai County and other interested private citizens, has been formed to make the city more bike-friendly. Numerous roads have been narrowed for cars, allowing for wider bike lanes on the sides. Construction on Mingus Avenue is expected to make the heavily trafficked road more accessible to bikes. The council is exploring a road diet on Main Street as it approaches Old Town. as well.
“I think the town is doing great,” said Jen Mabery, a health educator with Yavapai County Community Health Services who attended the bike ride. “The [city] council just widened the bike lanes and set warning lights.”
Beyond long-term goals of bicycle accessibility, Friday’s bike ride remained focused on the kids who participated. Educators at Cottonwood Elementary said they see it as a great way to get kids involved and moving.
“We really want to get Cottonwood more active and vibrant,” said Stacey Bray, a third-grade teacher at Cottonwood Elementary who participated in the event. “When we do things like the bike ride in the morning, they come in a little less stressed, more relaxed and just really ready to learn.”
“I hope they’re enthusiastic about it,” said Bob Richards, a cycling enthusiast and member of the Bicycle Advisory Committee who rode with the children. “They probably need some mentoring by parents and teachers to keep the enthusiasm up.”
Some of that mentoring was provided by the Cottonwood cycling community at the elementary school. Verde Valley Bicycle Company sent its best technicians, fixing and tuning up bikes for any student at the event who needed it.
“Wow, you guys can fix bikes?” one child wondered at the bike shop employees, who were applying their tools to a bicycle propped upside down. VVBC also provided discounts to the Verde Valley Cyclists Coalition to purchase the six mountain bikes for students.
Whether a day of biking to school will inspire students to be lifelong cyclists in a more bikefriendly city remains to be seen. But for one day, a whole caravan of kids joined in the enthusiasm.
“I have kids that say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize how easy that was, to ride my bike. I could ride my bike to school. I’m not that far away,’” said Carla Hover, a coordinator for health education programs at Yavapai County Community Health Services and program manager for the event. “It’s just bringing awareness to the kids. That it’s easy enough to do, that the school has bike racks, and that they could do this every day. They don’t have to wait for us.”
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551 or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
