Images From Yesterday's Bike Rodeo And Barbeque, Sponsored By MPD "Helmet Heroes"

Photos By John Hoff

Officer Mark Klukow, winner of the One Man Minneapolis pageant, and his partner, Mike Kirchen, yesterday sponsored a cook-out and bike rodeo in the Hawthorne Neighborhood, just off 3rd Ave. N. near the highway.

Klukow writes about the event on his blog, click here, and includes some pictures. Here are a few more images. At the top...

The rodeo in full swing. In the second photo, Laura Martin of "500 Under 5" gives out a book at the event. Numerous books were distributed during the rodeo. In the second photo, Officer Kirchen poses with Michelle and Sara, two nurses from U of M Fairview. Klukow says they are sticklers for making sure a helmet sits on a kid's head just as it should.

In the second-to-last photo, Officer Kirchen poses with one of the kids who won a bike (on the right) and another kid who just wanted to be in the picture. In the last photo, Officer Klukow catches a football.

At one point, I asked if Klukow would pose with a kid eating a doughnut and playfully "wrestle for the doughnut" for the picture. Klukow informed me he doesn't eat doughnuts in uniform--it's a personal rule of his--and rarely eats them at all, actually. He's very much into personal fitness. You wouldn't want to be at the front of a foot chase with Klukow behind you.