Many City of Charlottesville employees brown-bagged their lunches Tuesday afternoon and gathered at the Pavilion to hear about the C-ville Bike Mentors program from bike mentors Shawn Strubbe and Marty Quinn, and avid biker City Councilor David Brown.
The program allows individuals to contact mentors to individually help a prospective cyclist find the right bike, helmet, lock and routes to work while teaching proper bike safety on the road.
Strubbe says the most valuable aspect of the program is the “individualized attention” people new to biking receive, because it allows them to feel more comfortable on the road.
“There’s someone there to hold your hand instead of saying, ‘You should automatically fit into this group [of experienced bikers],’” she says.
During the lunch, Brown and Quinn discussed how to fit and wear your helmet to the rules of safety on the road.
More after the photo.
City Councilor David Brown discussed the rules of biking in the city.
Both speakers stressed the importance of learning often-ignored rules such as “ride on the right side of the road, but not on the sidewalk,” says Quinn and mandatory city regulations such as having a flashing light on both the front and back of a bike.
“The problem is, in elementary school we teach the rules to flag football, but not biking on the road safely,” says Quinn.
Brown and Quinn also talked about some of the more dangerous intersections in Charlottesville for bikers such as Fifth and Ridge streets; the intersections on Main Street towards the Downtown Mall and Preston Avenue and McIntire Road.
Yet, both noted that cyclists should remember they have all the responsibilities of vehicles on the road and must observe all the same traffic laws.