Most recent activity
-
I think it's important to try and make the link between club/racing cycling and Bikeability. Many people who ride in clubs, whether they be new or existing cyclists, haven't given a lot of thought to how to deal with traffic effectively. Newer cyclists are probably open to the idea of accessing training to help with this but persuading the more experienced cyclist that they would benefit can be tricky.
There is also the issue of the skills / etiquette / communication needed for riding in a club - some clubs are good at getting this over but others are not so good.
-
The issue of what is the normal cycling position was raised at the last ITO group meeting following the proposed changes suggested by Francesca who pointed out that the term ‘normal riding position’ is currently used in the NS (E.g. 8.3 and 17.3) to describe the secondary position. There was then some brief debate about how the secondary position should be described.
The level 2 outcomes are written as though the trainee approaches a hazard in the secondary position and then moves into the primary position to deal with that hazard. For example, 8.1 ‘On approaching a side road trainees should look over their shoulder then move into the primary position’ or 11.1 ‘In advance of the junction, the trainee must observe behind, move into the primary position…’
It seems to me that whilst the ‘normal position’ for cycling on busy roads for a person who is able to keep up with the speed of the traffic flow is the primary position, the normal position for a child cycling slowly on quiet roads (when not actively dealing with a hazard) may be the secondary position as there will be few instances where they will be travelling at the speed of the traffic flow.
Road positioning will clearly vary depending on how busy the roads are which are being used and at level 3 the normal position is much more likely to be in primary. It will also depend on factors such as the volume of parked cars.
As currently written it seems to me the NS reads as though the default (normal) position is secondary in the level 2 outcomes. As the Level 3 outcome 3 (understanding advanced road positioning) reasoning section states ‘The primary position is the default position for negotiating level 3 junctions’
It would be useful to get others’ views on this.
-
Paul Blomfield MP Sheffield Central. Already a cyclist and very positive about promoting cycling and the training he received.
-
If government funding of £40 / person for parents and carers were available to deliver at or around the time children received training how effective would this be in encouraging children to cycle on roads after their training?
Has any research been done on this?
Greg makes the point that delivering to children is more difficult than delivering to adults. This may be true in some cases but not in all. How you 'control' and adult or group of adults may be different to how you 'control' a group of school children.
We need to have a workforce who can deliver effectively to anyone who wants to improve their cycling.
Increasingly local authorities are funding adult training and we need to have instructors who want and are able to do this.
It seems to me that it should be possible to PCA based on what the instructor normally delivers which in some cases may make an outcome not applicable. If the scheme then wished the instructor to work in a different areas the scheme could provide the mentoring to ensure that person had the necessary skills.