Cycle trainers, what's made your day?

I know there is the other thread for what is spoiling your day, but for the most part I love this job.

A friend of mine bought a bike a few weeks ago and has been riding everywhere. Last week I bumped into him and he had done all kinds of nonsense to his bike, chopping down the handlebars, twisting the risers forwards and moving his brake and gear levers to a near impossible position to reach.

We were riding together from Richmond to Kingston and after about ten minutes I had to stop, because I found his riding terrifying and his position on the bike looked so awkward. He let me readjust his controls and saddle and we then had a conversation. I asked him a few leading questions about things like car doors, where did he believe he ought to be on the road, who has right of way. He was under quite a few misapprehensions. Ten minutes later we were on our way, he did not start off on the pavement, took a primary position through road narrowings and past parked cars.

A day later I got a text saying how much safer and more aware he now felt. Saturday we saw each other and he was still effusive about our conversation. Tonight we rode from Richmond to Kingston again, and it was amazing to see how much of what we had discussed had been completely assimilated. He could not believe the difference in drivers behaviour and was very clear that drivers were giving him the clearance he gives himself. Cars don't pass him as close anymore, he feels much safer but he did say he had been called a cunt 3 times in the last week by drivers, but at least they were giving him a lot more room.

Sweet one James.
Bit wasted from today but will share some soon.
Kids best joke of today -why did the hedgehog cross the road?
To see his flatmate.
Ba dum tish.

Mixture of made and ruined
1145 1 :1 bails on me, so I get a shout to do 1230 2 hours across town for summer club session, bolt over there and work for 2 hours,
find out later when no shows happen I can still invoice so win,
best bit of today in between the biblical weather was playing my old game of 'cycling styles and jobs' with the kids I made up- its like 'jumping / french bean/ runner bean' etc, everyone who works in outdoors will know except you act out racing/ paramedic/ postman/ paerboy/ mtb er/ police/ unicylcler/ recumbent/ etc etc and when they get good add tandem riders/ rickshaw riders for the team work bit. indoors. better than working for a living

Today. Kids starts doing a bit of twerking on his bmx
Worth it for the Lulz

Delivering CPC training and discovering the very high proportion of skilled, considerate drivers. Fantastic to find how many of them cycle regularly, and nearly all of them say they will modify their own cycling after the training.

Also found out that many companies are installing cameras that monitor drivers, and that they will then review footage if a complaint is made.

There are many companies interested in best practice from their workers, and they monitor telemetry from the vehicles to see if their is excessive speeding, aggressive braking or elevated g forces indicating a driver is behaving in an erratic fashion.

The flip side is that when delivering the training most of the cyclists we see seem to ride so poorly.

yeah I know what you mean,
you are miles ahead of the regions on this work, keep leading it
my news this week, have a middday sesh wednesdays for a couple of months, secondary school,
usual story- school call an emergency inset day next week as the head has done a runner or something.
we ask the kids if theyre alright to come next week anyway- same time- they like yeah, deffo,
so we get the senior staff to ok, and well carry on week 3 without the rest of the school in.
bags of adult work on at present, mainly all ladies, nice work, ranges from unconfident new riders to girls on full lycra beasting me to learn filtering/ fast roundabout tactics

I now find that when I am taking groups of kids out on the road that lorry drivers are the most likely road users to allow us out from side roads. It is rewarding and reassuring that all the CPC work has made a huge impact on this group of professional drivers.

Feedback from a trainee from yesterday "Hi James, thank you again for the training you gave me yesterday. I successfully (and confidently) made it in to work on my bike today :) "

Passed my instructor training.

Congratulations

Someone who follows me on twitter+youtube asked if I could do a session in glasgow and help her devise ways around riding on the road with near total blindness in her left eye after being glassed a couple of years ago. Pointed her towards a more local provider but it's given me even more to think about and just looking forward I can see myself doing really fulfilling work helping people in life changing ways.

nice work Clockwise

while Im on here
coming to the end of a years work level 3 teaching, 60 clients, mainly women.
been a gas, some complete newbs, very easy just converting the cyclists inferiority complex.
some 15 mile commute trips adding filtering over distance for fitties, soon be time term starts again and loads of schools work again.
will be celebrating 10 years in september.
come back then. keep up the good work

@Clockwise whats your twitter handle?

It's ClockwiseCyclin I only joined twitter a few weeks ago.

1st day in a new school, some kids really struggling but got them riding and had that "I made them ride, yay" feeling that comes with lvl 1. Also having the other instructor call me a "proper full on cyclists" after my 15mile commute was exposed.

Also having the other instructor call me a "proper full on cyclists"

Let's face it, you just seemed like several people after that. :)

Well done!

Thanks, I'm just loving this as work is rather full on with the long commutes but how I see it is just earn your stripes or whatever so to be expected at first. Also I think the lady in the office who sends us everywhere has now marked me down as "happy to cycle miles for work, will turn up" as rather than spamming lots of people I'm getting more direct messages about days to work, hopefully other instructors give good feedback that they want/like to work with me more and I'm all set to be top of the list all the time.

Dr Biked 38 bikes and assembled another 4 so really hard day with much confusion about if they booked a single or double dr bike but felt really good about it all. Also seems to have gone down well back at the office.

NSIP no more.

Go on! well done.

Not really looked into this section of the forum, and feel a bit stupid that i haven't. I'm working for BikeRight! out of the West Midlands offices, but looking after Business Development across the company.
James - i think we may have met at a TABS conference when it was last in Birmingham. We also met on the Brooks ride many years ago now....

Great to see some discussion on here about the DCPC stuff. We are running Safe Urban Driving courses ourselves, and i must say, it certainly toughens you up....

Whats your IRL name? I was indeed at the Birmingham TABS event and the recent TFL one in London.

Hope I did'nt say anything controversial - I have a bad habit of doing this IRL as well as online.

I must apologise for my behaviour on that Brooks ride - I was in a very messy state.

Ha Ha! Don't be daft - the Brooks ride was aaaaaaages ago.

My IRL name is Dan. Dan Morris. I'm sure we'll bump into each other again in the future, as i am taking more of an active role in quality control across the company.

The driver training sessions are pretty special aren't they!

Ha Ha! Don't be daft - the Brooks ride was aaaaaaages ago.

My IRL name is Dan. Dan Morris. I'm sure we'll bump into each other again in the future, as i am taking more of an active role in quality control across the company.

The driver training sessions are pretty special aren't they!