Bicycle safety tips offered

This is a busy time of year for children and adults as they are going to and from summer activities.

Here are a few tips to remain safe while cycling:

• Wear a properly fitted bicycle helmet. Protect your brain, save your life.

• Adjust your bicycle to fit. Stand over your bicycle. There should be 1 to 2 inches between you and the top tube (bar) if using a road bike and 3 to 4 inches if a mountain bicycle.

The seat should be level front to back. The seat height should be adjusted to allow a slight bend at the knee when the leg is fully extended. The handlebar height should be at the same level with the seat.

• Check your equipment. Before riding, inflate tires properly and check that your brakes work.

• See and be seen. Whether daytime, dawn, dusk, foul weather, or at night, you need to be seen by others.

Also wear something that reflects light, such as reflective tape or markings, or flashing lights. Remember, just because you can see a driver doesn’t mean the driver can see you.

• Control your bicycle. Always ride with at least one hand on the handlebars. 

• Watch for and avoid road hazards.

• Avoid riding at night. It is far more dangerous to ride at night than during the day because you are harder for others to see.

If you have to ride at night, wear something that makes you more easily seen by others. Make sure you have reflectors on the front and rear of your bicycle (white lights on the front and red rear reflectors are required by law in many States), in addition to reflectors on your tires, so others can see you.