2025-02-20 – News – www.theguardian.com
Sam Balto took the idea from a local school to the White House and beyond, inspiring a global movement in which children feel the benefits of cycling together
“It’s a movement, not a moment.” That’s the mantra from Sam “Coach” Balto, a former school teacher from Portland, Oregon who quit his day job to stoke a revolution called the “bike bus” – groups of kids and families cycling to school together.
How did one person in a mid-sized American city turn a weekly bike ride into something of a phenomenon? He leaned on the power of social media. In the past two years his videos have been viewed by hundreds of millions of people.
