The following is a release from Community Consolidated School District 181:

On Sept. 5 students from Walker School participated in the annual bike rodeo, an event that ensures students are safe and registered bicycle riders.

Clarendon Hills Police Department Officer Rick Talerico said the Walker bike rodeos have taken place since 1986. PTO bike rodeo co-chair Len Austin has helped organize the program at Walker for the last several years and believes in its value.

“The bike rodeo is about safety,” Austin said. “We check the students’ helmets, bike chains and air pressure.”

The last stop on the rodeo is a road test to ensure the students can ride their bikes comfortably. The officers on hand work with the PTO to get bikes registered, as well, assigning each bike a number and engraving that onto the frame to aid in theft recovery.

While there is no village ordinance requiring families to register their bikes, there is a school requirement that bikes be registered before they can be used for transportation to school.

The PTO volunteers who led the event remarked that many families participate in the rodeo not just for the engraving, but also for the safety lessons and helpful service.