Cycle training (for noddies)

There is funding to train as a national standard instructor. £300 for anyone who can put together a rudimentary business plan suggesting they plan to teach people to make cycling trips. The funding is payable on provisionally passing the 4 day training course. (Though there is currently a delay in paying out this bursary as the mechanism for paying this is in flux)

There is currently loads of work as a cycling instructor since the government have announced 25 million pounds specifically to be spent on cycle training over the next 3 years.

The skills required to begin the training are fairly basic... Love of cycling, good communication sklills and ability to ride assertively (In fact anyone considering training as an instructor would be well advised to go through the training themselves - as should anyone who rides a bike in London. The training is hugely empowering)

Cycle Training UK run open courses monthly and are also happy to set up a course should a group of 6 people or more wish to train together.

I think that for anyone who loves riding teaching others to do so is the best job in th world and in London the pay's not so bad either.

Any questions?

Cool thanks for the extra info.

There is currently loads of work as a cycling instructor since the government have announced 25 million pounds specifically to be spent on cycle training over the next 3 years.

...

Any questions?

where did you get that figure from??

There are various figures quoted all over the cycling press recently. This cycle training money is part of 140 million allocated to encourage cycling and being managed by cycling england. http://www.cyclingengland.co.uk/

This guardian piece mentions 60 million training
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wellbeing/story/0,,2282557,00.html

I actually heard 25 million over three years in a speech by Phillip Darnton, Head of Cycling England

Anyhoo waht ever the figure my point is that it's a good time to be a cycling instructor

ok, just wanted to check. i think that the £25 million is actually part of a £110 million increase for cycling england over the next 3 years - approximately 1% of the department for transport budget for one year - although actually cycling england are only getting 10 million extra this year (increasing the total amount to £20 million). not much, eh? furthermore, the evidence to support bikeability training is currently lacking (i'm not saying it doesn't work - just that it hasn't been shown to work) and, if you look at places like holland or germany, where cycling levels approach 50-60% of population journeys (as opposed to less than 2% of the journeys here), the uk plan to promote cycling is clearly lacking.

just my two pennies worth, but i think that the government is clearly bullshitting when they say that they're interested in promoting cycling - all talk and no actual doing anything, it's like pissing in the ocean to try and raise sea levels.

I don't think you need a survey to assess that training for people who want to learn how to tackle roads safely and efficiently is 150% a good thing.

"the evidence to support bikeability training is currently lacking (i'm not saying it doesn't work - just that it hasn't been shown to work)"

There is some evidence ... the aim of the training is to promote cycling. This research done by CTUK showed that people trained use their bikes more often, cycle further and ride in bad weather. check out ...

http://www.cycletraining.co.uk/resources/CycleTrainingWorks.pdf

I agree that they are pissing in the ocean to some extent but at least they now accept that soft cycling promotion measures like training and marketing cycling (like the cycling development towns, the freewheel, maps etc) work better than expensive infrastructure projects like stupid bits of cycle lanes that force cyclists into the worst places on the road and piss off `drivers who wonder why most cyclists don't use them.

oh and d0cA what would you suggest the government did?

and DfT needs to spend lots of money on public transport.

Word even in outer London public transport is no an option unless you want to head into London. If you want to head round London you need to drive, hence why the m25 is a car park, there is no alternative.

skydancer - first, thanks: i've spent much of last week searching for evidence about the efficacy of bikeability, but haven't found much. most of what i have is mentioned above, in this thread (i.e. the RoSPA report and also the article about australian bike training schemes, which was published in the Injury Prevention journal in 1998), so i will be looking at the pdf you mention a bit later on.

oh and d0cA what would you suggest the government did?

lots! perhaps the best starting point is an article published in the american journal of public health in 2003 entitled "[FONT=monospace]P[/FONT]romoting safe walking and cycling to improve public health: lesons from the Netherlands and Germany". they mention at least 6 different points of policy; at best, bikeability could be regarded as covering one of them.

hope this helps, am happy to send you the articles and/or further references if you want.

oh, and by the way, i am a (medical) doctor, currently studying a masters in epidemiology, in case you're interested - hence the pedantic interest in sources ;-)

d0cA could you send me the paper please to save me downloading it. The administrator has changed privileges in my department recently so I can't proxy through ssh to down load papers from home anymore.

it's good to have researchers :)
The great cyclist epidemic

"the evidence to support bikeability training is currently lacking (i'm not saying it doesn't work - just that it hasn't been shown to work)"

There is some evidence ... the aim of the training is to promote cycling. This research done by CTUK showed that people trained use their bikes more often, cycle further and ride in bad weather. check out ...

http://www.cycletraining.co.uk/resources/CycleTrainingWorks.pdf

I agree that they are pissing in the ocean to some extent but at least they now accept that soft cycling promotion measures like training and marketing cycling (like the cycling development towns, the freewheel, maps etc) work better than expensive infrastructure projects like stupid bits of cycle lanes that force cyclists into the worst places on the road and piss off `drivers who wonder why most cyclists don't use them.

having now read this report, i repeat my original assertion: the evidence to support bikeability training is currently lacking (i'm not saying it doesn't work - just that it hasn't been shown to work).

why?

well, many reasons. however, i'm just going to give some of them.

first, the report discusses individual cyclist training, i.e. one to one, not the one to many (or, group tuition) that i understand bikeability involves. second, the response rate to their survey design was only 30% which is actually pretty poor, even though they say the opposite. one has to question whether there were any differences between those who responded and those who didn't, and if so, what those differences may have been.

personally, i find those pretty important factors in analysing a report. moreover, this report that you've posted only presents simple descriptive statistics, and no actual indications of whether the levels are really likely to be different from each other or confidence intervals that we might expect to see the true results within. thus, whilst interesting, i would not base any firm conclusions on this report.

anyway, sorry to be discouraging - i've got a stats/epi exam on monday so am looking for any way to avoid revision that i can! and this certainly seems to be an "alternate" way of revising... but i must say thank you for finding it for me: it is interesting to know about.

cheers,

d0cA

"they mention at least 6 different points of policy;"

Be really cool of you could mention what they are...

I think that under ken (with nudges from Jenny Jones of the greens) TFL has promoted an fairly enlightened cycling promotion policy including a huge marketing campaign... we had ads on bus stops and around London, TV ads, Cycle training lots of it free, 20mph zones, cycle parking in most high streets, the maps...

the main barrier to cycling IMHO is the fear factor; so slowing down drivers and integrating cyclists into the traffic stream (Rather than segregating like in europe) has gone a long way to turn london (well hackney at least) into a cycling city. Here, we are years ahead of the rest of the country. I think the government should look at what has worked in london and emulate that elswhere round the uk (The CDT's go a little way and shoots of cycling growths has started in the first round of these towns such as exeter, brighton etc)

In fact the first cycling development city (Bristol vs manchester) will be announced this week.

i AM a cycle trainer! any questions, feel free to ask.
best thing that got said to me when i was undergoing my training course... "I hardly think that bike is appropriate for teaching on!"
quality

you're right...it is always difficult to statistically prove the causative link here...

There is however a strong case to suggest that common sense rules. that in any other field if you teach someone to do something they they do it better and more confidently.

Teach someone to cook and they'll be more likely to cook, teach someone to mend a fuse and they'll be more likely not to call an electrician... why should teaching someone to ride a bike be any different...

good luck in you exam Monday d0cA but stats can only take you so far we have brains and intuition to take us further

good luck in you exam Monday d0cA but stats can only take you so far we have brains and intuition to take us further

lol!! can you tell my examiners that for me please :-)

interestingly enough, one of my colleagues found a statistic that said that cycling in the uk has remained static at about 2% over the past 10 years. yes, cycling has gone up in london, but still only accounts for about 1.6% of journeys... .but i need to check those ones, they're from memory.

and, skydancer, the 6 points of policy - if you message me your email, i'll send you the paper so you can have a read.

if you want lots of stats on transport in London this is where to find it
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/publications/1482.aspx

It is quite difficult to compare London with other European cities. Here people commute very long distances. There is a culture difference as well, you wouldn't have the same bike or cycle the same way in London than say in Amsterdam. Instead of looking at numbers and what has happened what has changed etc.. look at the very near future. Petrol prices are not going to go down ever, taxes are going to increase. This is why motorists are so angry with cyclists, they think that by paying high prices they own the roads (well some of them anyway) instead of thinking "hey we're being screwed by high taxes, enough now let's look at alternative transport ".

There is no other way: public transport, walking and cycling are going to take over.

if you want lots of stats on transport in London this is where to find it
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/publications/1482.aspx

thanks! that's really interesting for me as i haven't seen all those reports before. however, i've only just started doing this recently and i and the people who i'm working with do have access to much of the raw data that TfL has and they (the people i'm working with) have done work on it before. i'm also doing some stuff to do with cycling in london, too, and will of course be posting it up here when it gets published.

It is quite difficult to compare London with other European cities. Here people commute very long distances. There is a culture difference as well, you wouldn't have the same bike or cycle the same way in London than say in Amsterdam. Instead of looking at numbers and what has happened what has changed etc.. look at the very near future. Petrol prices are not going to go down ever, taxes are going to increase. This is why motorists are so angry with cyclists, they think that by paying high prices they own the roads (well some of them anyway) instead of thinking "hey we're being screwed by high taxes, enough now let's look at alternative transport ".

There is no other way: public transport, walking and cycling are going to take over.

i certainly agree with your last comment here, and much of the preceding paragraph, too. however, i do think that policy has an important role to play and, unfortunately, people who make the decisions are influenced by what has happened before, evidence, etc. so, numbers can be important.

I have noticed that there are a lot more cyclists on the London roads this week (NY resolutions combined with warmer weather probably) and after witnessing an accident yesterday I think it is time to revive the cycle training thread.

One to one training is free depending on the boroughs you live or work and well worth it. Information on the TfL website.

If you think you are perfect and know it all, there is no shame in getting a copy of John Franklin, Cyclecraft.

Bike maintenance training is also on offer.

warmer weather?!! where the hell are you living?

i saw a job on that team advertised £30,000 salary

warmer weather?!! where the hell are you living?

South London ftw!
Isn't your tweed outfit keeping you nice and warm? ;)

Warmer doesn't mean warm teddy :)

I know Ealing offer free training.