Bike Club Grads Wheel Thru Fair Haven

If you genuinely want to grow bicycle culture in New Haven, start with the kids. And, specifically, all the kids, by making cycling a regular part of the physical education curriculum in the public schools. And just to be sure, carry it over into after-school cycling clubs as well.

On a bright and perfect-for-cycling Wednesday afternoon that very big idea emerged from a small but festive event at the Clinton Avenue School in Fair Haven: the school’s Youth Bike Club graduation ceremony for seven fifth and sixth graders and the very first of its kind in the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) organized by the New Haven Coalition for Active Transportation (NCAT).

Led by its Executive Director Leiyanie ​“Lee” Osorio, NCAT was marking its fifth anniversary of holding free classes for people of all ages on safe cycling and bike maintenance by graduating its first cohort of fifth and sixth graders like proud pals Aliya Lopez and Julaya Santiago.

The girls were part of a group who have spent the last six weeks learning how to check their ABCs (air, brakes, chain – and much more); how to use hand signals to communicate when riding in a pack; and how to repair a punctured tube with a vulcanized patch, as Nector Santos was doing with super volunteer, and Metropolitan Business Academy science teacher, Chris Willems.

All the learning and training, along with the bikes, helmets, pumps, and back packs are provided to the kids free by NCAT and its donors.

While Nector — he loves to assist fellow riders who have taken a fall or help re-attach a chain — already knew how to ride, Aliya and Juiaya learned through the club and are now pack leaders; that is, they are at times positioned in the group rides front, back or middle of the pack with jobs to keep the group together or to call out danger or instructions.

“If you see potholes, or glass, you use the stop signal [motioning down with your arm] or you use your voice,” Aliya reprised some of the lessons in the school gymnasium as the kids prepared to receive their diplomas on Wednesday. 

Soon thereafter they would roll their Cannondale Catalyst trail bikes outside to meet their New Haven Police Department (NHPD) celebratory motorcycle escort, and take off on their graduation ride on Fair Haven streets.

But motorcycle cops are not needed on every ride! 

Osorio was at pains to point out how on all the learning rides over the weeks of the program Fair Haven motorists have been very supportive, she said, yielding at intersections, and giving positive shout-outs to the pack and its fledgling cyclists.

Osorio, an avid cyclist proud of being the first Latina certified by the League of American Bicyclists to teach and train, met Clinton Avenue School science teacher Kattie Konno-Leonffu during the ten years Osorio was a director at LEAP and that youth leadership training organization had a site at the Clinton Avenue School.

That’s how NCAT’s first public school pilot program emerged at Clinton Avenue, in the years following the founding of the organization, in 2018, by Karen Jenkins who served as its first board chair.

Current Board Chair Doug Hausladen, a former longtime director of the city’s transportation department and now the executive director of the New Haven Parking Authority, and other board members were also in attendance donning their helmets for the celebratory ride. Hausladen recalled how NCAT formed out of a task force convened by former Mayor Toni Harp, as the city committed to ramping up construction of bike lanes and cycling infrastructure.

Hausladen, Osorio, and Konno-Leonffu have become convincing, eloquent evangelists about how much kids derive from the focused bicycle training and rides – reflecting values that go far beyond the pleasures, healthfulness, and environmental contributions of cycling.

Konno-Leonffu said that ​“some of these students might not be the best at academics, but here I’ve seen their leadership qualities arise.”

When Julaya came up to receive her diploma, Osorio reminded her how, undaunted, she was the first girl to join five boys, most of whom already knew how to ride. 

“Now,” she said of Julaya, ​“she rides with distinction, she’s [often] in the center of the pack to tell if there’s accordioning going on [the group is becoming too elongated, too much space between riders]. And she also brought in Aliya [to join the club.]”

In order to remain in the club, the kids need to perform adequately in their classes — if there’s a problem, Osorio and the teachers and student usually work things out — and Konno-Leonffu said membership in the club has helped some of the students cut down on chronic absenteeism.

“They show up on bike day,” she said. Social and emotional learning also take place. ​“In a smaller group [as opposed to a full class] here they can shine.”

In addition to the Clinton Avenue group, Osorio is completing a year of training and riding with kids at the Martin de Porres Academy, an independent Catholic school in the Hill neighborhood. That group has spent one semester learning biking skills and this second semester exploring New Haven. In the winter bike skills, and in the spring bike adventures, is the way Osorio put it. The St. Martin de Porres kids, for example, last week rode to Center Church on the Green and had a tour of the crypt.

When kids are on bikes, as opposed to the cumbersome and expensive and fume-spewing yellow school bus, opportunities to explore New Haven open up.

“Cycling is an important part of a child’s development that does not include a ball,” Osorio said, as the kids readied their bikes for the ride. ​“It gives an opportunity to develop motor and leadership skills [every bit as much as traditional sports like basketball and baseball]. ​“Our ​‘captains’ are our pack leaders.

“One of my hopes is for the program to demonstrate cycling should be funded as a regular part of the NHPS curriculum. Here and at St. Martin de Porres behaviors have changed [for the better]. And the programs should be extended beyond even the regular gym classes to after-school. The kids burn energy, do their homework, sleep well, and are renewed for the next day,” she said.

If that sounds like a wild ride of an idea, Osorio pointed out that such a program already exists in the Washington, D.C. public schools, and it is one of her models. ​“I want to bring that to New Haven.”

This summer she’s returning NCAT to the East Rock Magnet School with a bike and skating summer program; applications for 20 spots begin June 5 and the program kicks off in July, she said. For more information or to sign up or to donate funds or equipment, the NCAT link is here.

But that’s not all. 

Super volunteer and NHPS science teacher (and Fair Havener born and raised) Chris Willems is devising a course on the physics of bicycle riding and its interaction with the physics and chemistry of the human body. He, along with two other high school science teachers, are collaborating on developing a new course to submit to the NHPS science curriculum director to be approved, they hope, to inaugurate in the fall.

“The [new] science director invited us to create interesting new courses,” Willems said, ​“and this is a course I would have loved so much to take.”

“I’ve learned so much from Lee,” he added. ​“And we’re using the League [of American Bicyclists] and NCAT materials.”

Then club members and grown-ups, all on bikes, went out on Wednesday to join the NHPD motorcycle escort for a two- mile bicycle jaunt, along as many of Fair Haven’s bike lanes (Clinton Avenue prominent among them) as possible.

Nector Santos, in cool robin’s egg blue aviator glasses, was the leader of the pack.