that is several questions!
There's been an interesting discussion on the Share the Road UK thread about the value of cycle training - mostly in relation to children.
Some selective extracts -
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The requirements for cycling should be nothing more than the ability to stay upright, propel forwards and stop. Once you've done that you can ride a bike and we should encourage people to set off to practice their new liberating skill.
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(@Instography)
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I also think that by having more people cycling, things will change - in various ways. If 'training' makes people more confident/competent and more likely to cycle/more it will be useful (to some people).
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(@chdot)
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I've never thought too much about cycle training for children. I train my children to ride bikes in the same way that I train my kids to draw ...
... I guess I think it's a waste of time.
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(@Instography)
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Your suggestion is that we give up on that and don't offer the kids training? Surely some of them, despite the attitude of the parents, will go on to see cycling as something that fun and cool and want to do more? I would have thought that even just for that effect, to break the cycle instigated by their parents, the training was a good thing?
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(@Wilmington's Cow)
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I'm not saying we should give up on it. We teach kids (and adults) lots of stuff that is of no use to them in later life. ...
... If the idea is that we should train children to cycle on pretendy roads or even real ones on the off-chance that in some years hence that residual memory will help them to decide that they might be able to safely negotiate the trunk roads of Fife or the Picardy Place roundabout then yeah, we should keep going with the training. It's only a couple of days.
It's not reliable enough for me so in the meantime I'm going to adapt my mileage allowance thoughts in the direction of how I might ingrain the habit of riding a bike into an eight year old boy by tapping into his desire for Harry Potter memorabilia.
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(@Instography)
DECLARE AN INTEREST TIME
I have been advocating that all children should get proper cycling training in school time for about 15 years.
"Proper" includes real roads - though for obvious (and reasonable) reasons these tend to be ones with fairly low traffic (that's for Bikeability Level 2.) A few schools do Level 3 - "teaches children how to navigate more complex junctions and plan journeys effectively. It is aimed at Primary 7 pupils and supports them to make independent journeys and plan the quietest and safest route available."
DECLARE AN INTEREST TIME (2)
I am currently working on a project for CEC looking at the reality of cycle training in Edinburgh - and particularly if there is any chance of the CEC policy of '100% by 2016/2017' being possible with the existing method(s)/resources.
In addition we will be looking at the wider issue of encouraging 'cycling' within, and out of, school - especially good things like the Sustrans I Bike project.
We are wanting examples of good (or bad) things - not just Edinburgh - so post here (or PM).
The specific question of "why are we doing cycle training" has been raised by one of the people involved. She doesn't think it's a waste of time (neither do I obviously) but we are well aware that it needs to be a lot than a bit of paper and a few boxes ticked.
I have also set up (another) web site - not technically part of the project, but it will highlight some examples of 'good practice'.
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