Bike safety is important to learn, especially in a bicycle-friendly town like Port Townsend.

Looking to spread helpful safety tips and engage in the community, the Port Townsend Police Department is partnering with an assortment of local businesses and organizations to bring a Bike Rodeo to the Quimper Peninsula.

Working with East Jefferson Fire Rescue, the Port Townsend Public Library, S3 Training, the Broken Spoke, and Port Townsend School District, the Bike Rodeo is set from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 6 at Blue Heron Middle School.

“We started planning it a couple months ago and I thought it’d be a great opportunity for us to link up with the community, and a bike rodeo would be the best gathering for that,” said Kamal Sherif, an officer with the Port Townsend Police Department.

Rodeo attendees can “learn rules of the road, do some bike safety checks, and practice bike skills,” he said.

Plenty of community organizations will be in attendance and helping out, with the Port Townsend Public Library providing a storytime event, the school district providing food and the middle school campus, East Jefferson Fire Rescue bringing firefighter helmets for the kids, and more.

“The Broken Spoke’s going to be there with some of their staff,” Sherif said. “They’re going to help with bike inspections and do helmet fitting.”

The Bike Rodeo will also coincide with the police department’s recent move to establish bike cops downtown to bring better community-oriented policing.

“I look at it as a great way for the police department to really connect with the community on the street level,” Sherif said. “Port Townsend used to have bike officers, so we’re trying to revive it now. It’s very easy to approach officers when [they are] riding the bike, and it’s easier to talk to people.”

The event isn’t exclusively for bicycles. Scooter-users are invited to participate as well.

Considering it’s the first Bike Rodeo the police department has attempted, organizers are still ironing out final details and certain minor aspects of it could be subject to change.

“This will be a good first year, and we’re looking forward to making in an annual kind of thing,” Sherif said. “We want people to show up and have fun and make a day of it.”

“I think it’s an opportunity to reconnect with the youth on health and safety levels; we haven’t been able to do that for a while because of COVID,” Police Chief Thomas Olson said.

It should be a “large and memorable event, and hopefully we have it annually moving forward,” Olson added.

“It should be the first of many,” Sherif said.