Pleasant Hill bike fest attracts more than 1,500

PLEASANT HILL, CA (Sept. 11, 2024) — Attendance at the Bike Family Fest far exceeded what organizers were expecting. Parents and their children walked and rode bikes Sept. 8 to the grounds of the Pleasant Hill Library for the community-wide event.

Director Cara De Jong noted just 800 passports were on hand at the registration table for the kids to take around and get stamps from hand-picked vendors for the event so “we had to print more.”

The festival started as a smaller scale event at Pleasant Hill Elementary School held in the fall of 2022 and again in 2023. It is geared around education and skill development “to help these kids get ready to ride,” said De Jong, especially as the new school year is getting underway. Activities were set up for kids of all skill levels with courses suitable for beginner, intermediate and advanced riders.

Along with tents representing all the elementary schools in Pleasant Hill and their PTA representatives, Wheel Kids Bicycle Club was present to help youngsters learn basic skills for fixing bike problems like flat tires.

The event was hosted by the Bay Area Bike Project.  With still more volunteer support, De Jong hopes to make it an annual event.

David Scholz

David Scholz is back in journalism as a freelance writer and photographer after nearly two decades in education. Prior to moving into teaching in 2000, he worked as a full-time journalist since 1988 for rural community and small daily newspapers in Central Ohio and Northern Nevada, and later in California with The Business Journal in Fresno and dailies in the Bay Area, including The Oakland Tribune and The San Francisco Chronicle. More recently Scholz also worked in an editing, writing, and page layout role with the Rossmoor News.