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Bill  On The Road

 by: Bill Oetinger  6/1/2001

Experiential Education...what a concept!

On a weekday ride through the Sonoma County village of Occidental in April, we noticed a large group of teen-agers, all with bikes and all wearing matching t-shirts. We wondered why a group of kids would all be cycling through the west county on a weekday afternoon, so we cruised over and struck up a conversation. Turns out they were high school students from Aspen, Colorado, and that they were taking part in a school-sponsored, week-long bike tour through our area.

Fireworks illuminating downtown Aspen

They had traveled via Amtrak from Colorado to Davis, California and had ridden as far as Occidental in daily stages averaging around 50 miles, camping overnight along the way. Their destination that afternoon was Bodega Bay, on the shore of the Pacific. In the ensuing days, they were to ride into San Francisco, take the ferry across the bay to Vallejo, and then ride back to Davis for the return train trip.

After chatting with the kids and their teachers, I was so impressed with the whole undertaking that I determined to follow up and learn more about it. I jotted down an e-mail address for the trip coordinator and fired off a query. Once they returned from their trip, I received a reply from Dave Conarroe, Aspen HS Athletic Director and leader of the bike tour. After reading it, I was even more impressed. Here is his response...

"The Bay Area Bike Tour is part of an overall program in our high shcool called Experiential Education. In the lower grades, it is known as Outdoor Ed. The school board requires all students to participate in outdoor ed/experiential ed each year. Our program at the high school consists of 17 activities which challenge the students in a way not available in the normal classroom. In addition to our road bike tour, the staff offers a mountain bike trip to White Rim and Moab, desert backpacking, Tetons showshoeing/camping, hut-to-hut cross-country skiing from Aspen to Vail, two different canoe trips, two different raft trips, a strenuous kayak trip on the Colorado River, and three urban experiences which emphasize cultural activities and include some sort of service component (soup kitchen/habitat for humanity).

"I am the organizer and originator of this bike tour. We started out in Arizona in the early 1980's, but we had too many problems with heat. My sister and brother-in-law live in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, so one day we headed out on our bikes to explore an alternative. Voila! There are parts of our tour that have some hectic traffic, but overall, the climate, campgrounds, traffic volume, routes, and ease of access are ideal. This year we had 38 students in three groups. You saw mine. Each student pays $400. We provide the bicycles from 40 available in our "fleet" for student use (certainly not state-of-the-art, but serviceable). The fee includes all food, camping, a hotel the last night, a support truck, and transportation on Amtrak. We had 12 adults for this group. Five were teachers and the rest were community volunteers who like to ride and are willing to put up with kids for a week.

"Total mileage is about 300 miles. We do very little riding in and around Aspen before the trip. We try to get in a 40-mile ride before we leave. The rest is up to the kids on trainers and spinners. Some folks think it's criminal to hurt the kids this way, but in the 15 years I've been doing this, I've never had a complaint from kids or adult volunteers (including some high-end cyclists) that what we're doing is detrimental in any way. It is pretty risky, but the entire program from K-12 is predicated on some risk. (8th graders do an outward-bound type 24-hour solo/survival deal with a very strenuous hike.) I have introduced this kind of bike experience to over 400 students. I am convinced it is the most outstanding offering in the program when we consider climate, terrain, aesthetics, challenge, character development, and the "fun" quotient."

After seeing the kids in Occidental, I would have to agree. In spite of being hot and tired from their climb through the hills, they were clearly aglow with the spirit of adventure and the pride of accomplishment. They were obviously having a great time on an epic journey they will remember as one of the highlights of their young lives...maybe as one of the highlights of their entire lives.

Not too long ago, our local paper carried a story about many school districts around the country eliminating recess, claiming it's a waste of time...as if having time to learn how to play creatively and to hone social skills is a waste of time! In light of such distressing news, it's refreshing to see at least one school district marching to an entirely different drummer. How I wish I could have participated in a similar program when I was in high school, and how I wish more schools would implement such programs today. Neither I nor my kids had any opportunities of this nature during our schooling, and we all attended "good" schools, where you would think such things would be at least feasible. The most exciting school trip I ever did was a long weekend at a journalism conference. My kids spent a week in Washington, DC. While both those trips were memorable, neither offered the full mind-body-spirit engagement that any of these Experiential Education trips must provide.

One might argue that Aspen is an affluent, priviledged community, and that such trips might be difficult in more mainstream or disadvantaged districts. Maybe so, but I say: where there's a will, there's a way. Where there is a clear vision of how things can be, and where there is a commitment to make that vision real, ways will be found to make it happen.

Ways can be found to organize a fleet of decent bikes for school use. Police departments regularly collect many bikes that are lost or stolen and never reclaimed. Some of these will be good enough to be put back in service. (Our own club's Bike Elves project takes bikes from the Santa Rosa PD and renovates them, and so far, we have provided over 2000 good-as-new bikes to needy kids. Some of these are bikes for tykes, but some are good road bikes that would be appropriate for a high school fleet.) Active cyclists are forever upgrading their bikes, and each time they do so, their old bikes become surplus. Sometimes these are sold--usually for peanuts--and sometimes they gather dust in the back of the garage. No doubt many of these mothballed bikes could find their way into school fleets, perhaps as donations or maybe just as loaners for the duration of the trip.

Paying the $400 fee could be a challenge for some families. But many parents already pay that much or more for their kids' athletic supplies or band instruments...not to mention how much they spend on video games, cell phones, clothes, cars, etc. for their kids. Compared with most of those expenses, these trips are a great value. For those who are truly needy, there are many grants, scholorships, and other forms of assistance that can be pursued. And some of the trips that involve less travel are probably less expensive. It doesn't have to be a far-away bike tour. Just a local hiking/camping adventure will do.

Perhaps the biggest challenge will be to find the teachers and parents who can embrace this vision and find the time and energy to implement it. It always comes down to people, doesn't it? Maybe this is the real advantage that Aspen currently enjoys: a core group of committed individuals who will do what it takes to open up the world to their children. But if they can do it, why can't my school district do it? Why can't yours?

If this strikes a chord with you, copy this column and pass it along to your school's Athletic Director, Principal, or school board member.


Afterword: last month I wrote about the origins of the "safety" bicycle. Although not claiming to be an expert on the history of the bicycle, I did state that the safety bike design first appeared in the 1880s. Well, my old friend Emilio Castelli, ever alert for any errors in my columns, and always vigilant to celebrate things Italiano, was quick to point me to a website about that great artist/inventor, Leonardo da Vinci. And there, at the site, was a picture of a bicycle designed by clever Leo in the middle of the 15th century, complete with pedals, cranks, and a chain driving the rear wheels. The bike is mostly made of wood, including the wheels, and probably weighs about a hundred pounds, but clearly, the design anticipates the invention of our modern bicycle by over 400 years. Perhaps Mona Lisa is smiling the way she is because she can see Leo's trick bike hanging from a rafter in his studio.

Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net



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