June 3-9 is GoByBike Week in B.C. and for the mountain bike riders with Team Awesome, there was no better week to visit a local school and help the students fix up their wheels.
Joined by the North Cowichan/ Duncan RCMP, who taught youngsters about road safety, members of the team including: Lora Favor, Don Deines, Colin Champous, Ron Erickson, Steve Garnett, and Dave Dougan, got to work at Drinkwater Elementary on Tuesday, June 4 engaging with the youth while helping them fix or tune up their bikes.
Deines and Champous have a small home-based bike shop they’ve dubbed C&D and Deines joked that “if you bring us your bike and we find nothing wrong with it, there just might be when we return it!”
Team Awesome and the Drinkwater staff went above and beyond to make sure every bike seen was safe and ready for action.
Team Awesome is made up mostly of retired education and mental health professionals and they all know how important bikes can be to youth.
The mechanics chatted with the kids and had them participate in the repairs and cleaning of their own bicycles. The mood was happy and productive.
“We’ve done it a couple of times at Bench Elementary, too” Favor said of the event. “If we expand too much more we will need some community support to keep it going.”
The RCMP had three officers and their mascot, Safety Bear, on hand to talk about being safe on the streets. They also gave tours of a police cruiser and a paddy wagon, and answered any and all questions thrown their way.
GoByBike Week runs until June 9. Visit gobybikebc.ca to learn more.
