Berlin High Students hit the streets
One would expect to find a unit on baseball, basketball or soccer in their local high school’s physical education curriculum. What about bike riding? Berlin High School is one of a few schools in the state lucky enough to offer a comprehensive cycling component. This program is made possible due to the teamwork of Berlin physical education teacher, Jim Arnold and Farmington’s bike shop Central Wheel and shop owner, Jeff Gelt’s generosity.
Jim and Jeff worked together at Central Wheel in the mid 1990’s and built a close connection. Over time, they moved in different directions. Once Jim became a fixture at Berlin High School, he reached out to Jeff to see about getting used bikes donated. Central Wheel regularly has customers at loss for what to do with their old bikes. Those old, rusty bikes take up space in garage corners, sheds and basements. As the collection at Central Wheel builds, Jim gets a call to load up his pickup truck with the bikes to take back to the school. There he works on building bikes for his students to ride. The current collection is about 40 bikes strong. It takes about three bikes to build one. The bikes are assembled with an odd assortment of parts, but the students aren’t concerned about those details. They are more interested in the color of the bike than the mismatched shifters.
Bikes for Berlin High Students
Jim is anxious for everyone to experience the joy of riding a bike. During the unit, students first learn about bike safety. Then they learn about shifting, braking and stopping. In their 60 minute physical education class, they take their bikes outdoors to ride around the school parking lot. This venue allows students to practice skills like control, riding in a group with traffic, cornering and stopping. There’s even a small mountain bike trail cut in the woods surrounding a soccer field on campus where students often get their first off road opportunity! At the conclusion of the curriculum, students head off campus to either the local Dunkin Donuts or Dairy Queen.
Bike riding also happens after school and at the occasional charity event. On Thursdays, Jim and about ten of his students will venture to Bicentennial Park or Lamentation Mountain in Berlin to ride a few miles in the woods. The students get to experience off road riding on the trail in the woods. Those that like the feeling of riding off-road embrace the club and its weekly rides. In the past, school groups have also ridden a metric century (100K or 62 miles), the Bike New York 5 Boro Bike Tour, Bike Boston and Discover Hartford events.
Jim teaches the students that cycling offers a service to yourself. It eliminates the reliance on gas and then need to spend more than $4.00 a gallon to fuel an automobile. The physical activity does wonders for your body. Traveling on two wheels is green for the environment. During the curriculum students watch a short 4 minute video about the Two Mile Challenge. Clif Bar has put together an informative video about how reliant Americans are on their cars. Jim practices what he preaches and two or three days a week he commutes into work on his bike.
Jim has seen his students genuinely enjoy riding bikes. Since implementing the program six years ago, three students at the high school level have learned to ride bikes for the first time. Countless others have rediscovered riding a bike. The school recently purchased a tandem bike, a bicycle built for two, so students with special needs could ride too. The Berlin High School community has collectively worked to boost the program. The Nurses Association donated money to purchase bike helmets as they promote bike safety. Fellow faculty member, Dave Cusano has brought donated bikes into his classroom as part of the STEP alternative education program. Here, his students work on repairing the bikes. They feel a sense of pride when they transform a junky rusty bike into a fully functioning person powered machine. The reworked bikes are then donated to the Boys and Girls Club of Meriden.
The Berlin cycling program is possible because of the time and hard work put forth by Jim and the generosity of Jeff and the team at Central Wheel. Jeff keenly observed that his customers had no need for their old bikes, and struggled with what to do with them. So he collected them and passed them to a greater cause, giving them a new life in the hands of Jim and the students at Berlin High School.
