If it’s a Friday morning and the weather is decent, you’ll find a group of children gathering at Charlotte’s Freedom Park to ride bikes to Park Road Montessori School.
Bethanie Johnson started riding her bicycle everywhere when she was a single mom who couldn’t afford to maintain a car on her teacher assistant wages. But this isn’t a hard luck story.
“Once I started riding my bike to school I realized how much better I felt when I got to school,” she recalls.
She and Heather Ruckterstuhl, the assistant in the classroom next door at Park Road Montessori, started talking: Wouldn’t it be nice to offer the same experience to students?
That was in 2014. Johnson and Ruckterstuhl still work at Park Road Montessori, and Bicycle Fridays are still going strong. And while Johnson says she’s now “in a different place financially,” she hasn’t gone back to driving.
“I haven’t had a car in nine years,” she says. “I have bags on the back of my bike. … I’ve carried a Christmas tree in a trailer up my hill before, so I can carry a lot of things on that bicycle.”
A community of kids and parents
After a stretch of bad weather, last Friday dawned overcast but pleasant. Around 8 a.m., vehicles with bikes strapped to the back started pulling into Freedom Park. The playground parking lot serves as a trailhead where students gather to ride 1.4 miles along Little Sugar Creek Greenway to school.
Ruckterstuhl signed the kids in as they arrived. She welcomed Hugh Ward, a first-grader who had missed winter rides because of tennis lessons.
“Hey, Hugh! Glad you’re back. How are you?” she called out.
Hugh explained that he wouldn’t be joining the afternoon ride back to the park because “I’m taking my class pet home. Also, it’s my dog’s birthday.”
Hugh’s mother, Liz Ward, says the gathering time before and after the rides is fun for kids and parents. She and Hugh would miss this particular afternoon — it might not be a great idea for a 7 ½-year-old to bring the hamster home on his bike — but in general that’s a time that Ward cherishes.
“All the kids play on the playground, and so it gives us parents a chance to connect and meet each other and watch the kids play,” she said. “He’s made a ton of friends in the afternoon, and we have too.”
Green doughnuts and crazy hair
Holidays are a big deal for the riders. On Halloween, they all dress as skeletons. Christmas brings a special tour of decorations. And St. Patrick’s Day meant green clothes, green Krispy Kremes — and for first-grader Liam Thompson, shamrock green hair.
“So I dyed my hair and it was pretty crazy,” he explained.
Liam has been riding with the group since kindergarten. To qualify children have to show that they can stop, start and ride in a straight line. And a parent has to ride with a child at first, but Liam is past that point.
“It’s super fun and I feel like I’m free,” he said.
Park Road is a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools magnet. Families choose Montessori schools for a method that’s based on independent exploration, rooted in their community. “Independence” is a word that comes up repeatedly when the adults talk about kids taking that first ride without parents at their side, learning to get themselves to and from school safely and being good stewards of the greenway.
Riding safely
The ride isn’t risk-free.
“We have crashes sometimes,” Johnson said. “That’s just a part of riding bikes. Sometimes you’re going to fall.”
But Park Road Montessori has one great advantage: The greenway leads right to the back of the school, with only a short stretch on a side street. And every ride starts with a safety review.
“What do we need to remember about riding on the roads?” Ruckterstuhl asked as the children and adult escorts lined up.
The kids enthusiastically tested their bike bells while calling out answers:
“Don’t pass the leaders.”
“It’s a ride, not a race.”
“Don’t switch from the sidewalk to the road and the road to the sidewalk.”
That last one has an even simpler version: Be predictable. Ruckterstuhl had the kids repeat it in unison. Then it was time for student leader Lara Swartz to get the bike caravan moving.
In about three years, Park Road Montessori is slated to move to a bigger, newer building. That could end Bicycle Fridays, but until then Johnson plans to keep it going. Her goal is to make it to 10 years.
“You’d never get over how joyful it is to ride bikes with kids. It’s just loud and crazy but also there’s so much joy in it,” she said. “I think that’s what keeps it fresh. There’s always someone new riding, there’s always someone who just learned how to ride their bike. So it’s really special.”
