STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Dark clouds threatened to rain upon the parade. And the deer and elk that nibbled along the bike path, eyeballing those who rode by, were shaking off drops from an earlier rainstorm.

But that didn’t stop hundreds of youngsters and adults from taking part in the annual Bike to School and Work Day last week.

And if they really truly wanted to get wet they could always ride right through the bubbles that Beth Inouye and Susan Chizum were shooting out onto the bike path from their bubble machine at the Big Wood School booth.

Nappy Neaman of The Elephant’s Perch plied passersby with donuts. Then he offered an invitation to Tricia George as she stopped by with her 7-year-old daughter Stella.

“You might want to bring this bike into the store. This is supposed to be the other way,” he said, pointing to a protector that was awry on Stella’s purple bike.

Some parents pushed smaller tykes uphill, even as they pedaled their own bikes. One Dad followed his young’un on a longboard.

Club Ride’s Cameron Lloyd, who coaches the high school mountain bike team spent the morning baking bacon for them under the twitching nose of his yellow lab Mellow.

And Kirstin Webster and Kate McKenzie showed off the off-road hand cycles that Higher Ground uses with veterans transitioning back into society.

“The one where you kneel facing forward is meant for downhill—it gives you more leverage than when you’re sitting upright,” aid Webster. “The other is where you sit upright is also an off-road hand cycle but more for cross-country.”