During Febraury 2011, I cycled from Waiheke Island to Wellington on a storytelling and cycling adventure on behalf of the Once Upon An Island Trust. The project was dubbed, ‘”Spoke ‘N Word’ encapsulating the two main themes – the bike and story.

The main aim of the project was to encourage the joy of cycling in primary aged children through the medium of storytelling and story making.

At each of the schools I visited I worked with the children to help create their own bike stories using the kamishibai – a form of traditional Japanese illustrated storytelling. Kamishibai was historically performed off the back of the bicycle on the streets and so was the perfect choice for this project.

The children’s stories were created in response to a series of stories (both historical and fantastical) I shared about cycling and a number of ‘story provications’.

These included:

If there was a bike super hero what would their name be and what would be there super strength?

My best bike adventure was when….

If (character) rode a bike it would look like….

If I could ride my bike anywhere I would cycle to….

Choose any traditional story and add bikes to it.

The stories collected will be included in a bike activity and storybook that the Trust aims to have published for NZ Bike Month 2013.