Things are rolling for New Westminster Secondary’s newest after-school club.
The bike club, organized by trades’ teacher Dan Lee, aims to get kids interested in bike maintenance and teach them how to repair their own bikes. The club is open to all grades, and Lee said he had especially good turnout during the initial workshop last month.
“We had about a dozen or so students,” he said.
The workshop was essentially a kick-starter for the club. It was a four-week program after school led by Gordon Hobbis, owner of Cap’s Sapperton. He introduced the students to basics of bicycle maintenance and repair and even brought in some donated bikes from his shop for them to work on.
“He’s been a huge help. He’s donated probably 40-plus bikes so far to the school,” Lee said.
Lee started the club to drum up interest in a for-credit course that will be offered at the high school next September. The district-approved course was created by Lee, who said he hopes that the students will come away with an excitement about cycling they didn’t have before.
Part of the course will include rebuilding the bikes Hobbis donates and donating them to community groups. He’s already connected with the Lookout Emergency Aid Society and hopes to find more organizations who could use it, especially ones that work with families.
Another positive impact of the club, and hopefully the course, Lee said, is that it introduces students to cycling as a way of getting around. Lee, who himself is not a hard-core cyclist, said he’d like to see the kids take up cycling as a way of recreation and transportation.
Some of the students are already converts.
Grade 11 student Anton Babiy told the Record he’s already biked over almost every major bridge in the Lower Mainland, including the Pattullo Bridge, and has gone on rides as long as 80 kilometres. This summer, he and his friends plan on crossing the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges.
Babiy doesn’t plan on taking the bike course next year – he can’t fit it into his schedule – but he will continue to drop in on the bike club.
Lee has no plans of shutting down the bike club once the district approved course begins next fall. He wants to keep that open for students like Babiy who can’t take the course.
