Eve Lamb
How often do you get the chance to take a cruise on a double decker bicycle named Elliott – with toaster attached?
Not every day, that’s fairly clear.
But last Thursday was one such day as staff and students at Castlemaine’s Steiner School joined forces with CycleSafe Mt Alexander to hold a decorated bicycle parade.
It was a lively warm up ahead of Friday’s national Ride2School day that saw hundreds of local students cycle to school among tens of thousands doing the same nation-wide.
Elliott, the double decker bicycle, is the home-welded creation of Castlemaine cyclist Paddy O’Sullivan and was among the multitude of wheeled wonders that rolled up to be part of the Steiner School’s lively afternoon parade.
Like the Ride2School day that followed on Friday, Thursday’s parade was fun but packed a couple of serious messages as well.
“Elliott is sort of an earth bike,” said Paddy as he loaned his bespoke steed to the Steiner students to test ride around the school oval where the parade took place.
“Elliott is partly to remind people to ride bikes and yes, that is real toaster that I’ve welded onto him to remind people that we’re toasting the planet.”
Besides the environmental benefits, Ride2School is designed to help more school students to get physically active on their journey to school.
National Bicycle Network members say that over the past 40 years the number of children who are physically active daily has significantly dropped.
“In the 1970s, eight out of 10 students rode or walked to school but today that number has dropped to just two out of 10,” the Network’s website records.
Supporting these messages is locally based CycleSafe Mt Alexander whose spokeswoman Penny Gilbert was in the thick of the fun at Thursday’s parade in the guise of “Rainbow Rider”.
“CycleSafe is working with the council to make sure cyclists are represented in policy making and infrastructure planning,” Penny said.
“Our needs are different to those of pedestrians.
“We’d like some more off road tracks and we’d like them all to be connected so all of the kids could safely ride to school.”
