A BIKE shop’s drive to promote road safety for cyclists has been backed by two Olympic heroes.

Triathletes Alistair and Jonny Brownlee judged Re-cycle’s competition to design a colourful poster to raise awareness of staying safe on the roads.

Alistair, the double Olympic champion, and his younger brother, Jonny, who finished second in the Rio Olympics, picked Laudi Maisha, a Year 6 pupil at St Lawrence’s Primary School, as their winner.

The Walmgate-based shop repairs bikes so they can be re-used and staff have recently been visiting schools in the area to teach children basic bike safety.

Pupils at St Lawrence’s primary school all designed their own safety posters and Re-cycle chose the top 12 and sent them to the Brownlee brothers.

The pair returned their choice, along with a signed shirt to give to Laudi.

Re-cycle plan to print copies of Laudi’s poster with the help of City of York Council, and distribute them to all primary schools in the area.

Bradley Want, from Re-cycle, said: “We are very grateful to Jonny and Alistair for their support.

“It means so much that they have backed our campaign.

“As a business heavily involved in cycling, we are so concerned about the safety of children on the roads.

“While there are many great schemes out there already, anything that can help educate them further can only be a good thing.

“Laudi’s poster is a fantastic design and I can’t wait to see it up in every school.”

Between them the Brownlees, from Leeds, have four Olympic medals, four Commonwealth Games medals, three World Championship titles and three European titles.

They were the first brothers to share a podium in an individual sport at the Olympic Games since 1908 and only the fifth brothers ever in Olympic history to finish first and second when they competed in Rio.

In a message to the organisers, they said: “We were very honoured to be asked to judge the poster competition, especially as it’s about such an important topic, cycling safety.

“It was a tough choice, the standard was very high but congratulations to Laudi for the best one.”