Helping The Young Get To Be Old (Cycling)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Cycling
Date:	30/09/01 (45 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Satisfaction from a healthier outdoor life

Disadvantages: Some roads just defy safe usage on a bike

I have never been a keen, or evangelical cyclist, but I do use a bike to get from A to B, providing A’s quite near B on the public road.

For me, the real pleasure of cycling comes from the off-road stuff. No, I’m not one of these mountain-bikers who pride themselves in being able to go up 30% inclines on mud, I just like canal banks and parks etc.

However, having just taken early retirement and realised that there’s only so much decorating you can do, before your household DIY becomes like painting the Forth Bridge, I set about looking for a part-time job, which was :-

a)Nothing to do with management (I’d had 31 years of that)
b)Was outdoor (I’d been indoors for 31 years)
c)Was active (I’d been behind a desk for 31 years)
d)Paid me something (I’d been paid noth……whoops)
e)Sounded like it was something worth doing from its basic description. (Unlike my previous job)

And there it was - one of the London Boroughs advertising for Schools Cycling Proficiency Instructors.

So I applied.

I got an interview.

I got the job.

Wow, that’s two jobs I’ve applied for externally in 32 years and got both of them! Still, mustn’t give the impression I’m a fly-by-night just using my jobs as stepping- stones, eh?

I should also add that the process involved the taking up of references AND Police checks, since I would be dealing with children. A reference from my wife’s school’s head no doubt helped, since I have been lending a hand there for years.

The job consists of visiting (mainly) Junior Schools to put the year 6 children through their paces on their bikes, and hopefully instilling some road-safety techniques into them before they go off and find out the (very) hard way that most car drivers either don’t see them, or would rather not bother.

This is done with a moderately
small amount of classroom work and a larger proportion of work out in the playground where simulated streets are set up to try out the manoeuvres discussed indoors.

We also give their bikes the “once-over”, for obvious flaws like bald tyres, rusted-up brakes and loose steering. For legal reasons, we have to be careful about making adjustments ourselves, and have to confine our remarks to a list of defects to show their parents. After all, at this stage, we’re not touching roads with a barge pole.

As well as increasing their knowledge of the Highway Code with Q&A sessions, we teach the correct way to start from the kerb, turning left onto and from a main road, turning right onto and from a main road, how to overtake a parked vehicle and safe stopping by the kerb.

All of this is interspersed with games like slow bicycle races and obstacle courses, designed to heighten their slow speed skills (essential as you approach Give Way lines), and “Lives” (make nine mistakes and you’re out). “Hospitals”, a one-life version really concentrates the mind wonderfully.

The children progress through continuous assessment from about day 4 of the 7-day course, and sit a small Highway Code test. For me, this is the best part of the course, sat there putting 6 nervous children at their ease, and even getting them to smile. Yesterday, one little girl asks me timidly whether the test had started. I told her it depended on whether she thought it had, or was she just having a chat with a harmless old geezer like me! Either, she wasn’t to worry, and she got on just fine.

Although we don’t use the “F word” (Fail), not everyone passes at the end of the course, but some are given the opportunity to have a bit more practice, after which we have an almost 100% pass rate. Unlike something like arithmetic, where they have all had the same chance to learn it, not everyone has had a b
ike for the same length of time, and some of the kids are labouring with a new larger bike, with little idea how to work their 24-speed derailleur gear changes. I lose count of the number of fly-away chains I have to put back on in the course of a week. They really should give us a pack of Wet-Wipes in amongst the cones, ropes, and road signs.

In our theory training, we deal with other aspects of road craft like dealing with roundabouts – my advice, get off and find a pedestrian crossing. This is not a cissy thing to do, and it’s perfectly healthy to want to live a long time! Another good way not to end up as the meat in a truck sandwich is never to ride down the left hand side of a long vehicle even if there’s plenty of room. They are just as likely to be turning left.

At the end of the course, we stress that they have passed Stage 1 only of their cycling careers. Stage 2 involves their parent’s permission to go out on the road, with an experienced grown-up, and even then, only on quiet roads. Stage 3 is a progression to busier roads, before finally being trusted to go out alone on roads.

Next year, we will be offering some limited Stage 2 On-Road training at the schools. But only with those who a) had a whole-hearted pass mark, b) who turn up with helmets and c) who have SIGNED permission from parents/guardians.

I realise not all authorities provide this service, but even if they don’t, PLEASE don’t let your kids out on the road to run riot with their mates. Roads are for transport, parks are for recreation. See if you can get a map of bus/cycle lanes and designated cycle paths from your local library. This might even mean that you feel like going out with them. The more bikes there are on the roads, the more motorists will have to remember them. It’s made me a better driver, if nothing else!

This is not an official opinion of my employer, which is why I’ve not said who t
hey are.

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