It's already reaching more than 3000 Tauranga primary school children every year - now the award-winning Kids can Ride cycle education programme is being wheeled into local intermediate schools.

Mount Maunganui Intermediate cyclists negotiate the Ocean Beach Rd intersection with Golf Rd, with Kids Can Ride founder Iris Thomas bringing up the rear. Photo: Jamie Troughton/Dscribe Media Services

It's the next step, organisers say, in making Tauranga a cycle-safe city.

In the last month, Mount Maunganui and Otumoetai Intermediate students have helped trial the next stage of a safer journeys programme, run by Tauranga City Council's Travel Safe and the Kids Can Ride team, and sponsored by PowerCo through the City Partnership programme.

"We wanted to make sure our budding cyclists were using the skills we taught them at primary school and applying them over the longer distances they needed to get to intermediate," says Kids Can Ride founder Iris Thomas.

"And we were delighted to see that's exactly what they were doing. The next step was guiding them over the safest journeys to and from school, plotting potential hazards and making sure they were being responsible road users alongside normal traffic."

TCC Travel Safe coordinator Cindi Feder explained that students were given the opportunity to identify hazards on their cycle commute to and from school, allowing them to work alongside instructors for the safest outcome.

"They were able to further develop their cycle skills and navigate their way to and from school safely in a real-time, real-environment cycle programme," says Cindi, adding it was encouraging to see how many students were already cycling and felt confident with the skills they had previously gained from Kids Can Ride at primary school.

The programme took in some of Tauranga's busiest roads at peak times - including Otumoetai and Ngatai Roads, and Mount Maunganui's Ocean Beach and Girven Roads.

Instructors rode home with groups of cyclists, then met them the next morning for the return journey amid different traffic flows.

The Mount Maunganui expeditions coincided with a police crackdown on cyclists not wearing helmets, which they are continuing to monitor.

Although Iris says her instructors noted handfuls of adults still defying the law and riding bare-headed, they are gratified the younger generation are leading by example.

She also explained that using common sense and courtesy were two key tools for the Year 7 and 8 cyclists, attributes shared by an increasingly cycle-friendly city of cars.

"I started Kids Can Ride eight years years ago and the difference in driving habits between then and now is so dramatic," says Iris.

"We're seeing a whole new awareness of cyclists now and most drivers are showing a lot more respect, especially for the younger kids. That's going to encourage more people in general to bike, reducing traffic flows and increasing the general health of the population - it just creates an endless cycle of positive benefits."

Several intermediate students were already completing 20km round trips from Papamoa to Mount Maunganui each day,” says Iris.

Travel Safe coordinators and Kids Can Ride instructors are already planning how to strengthen the programme for next year.