Cycle Training Around The World

Watching the excellent Spanish video Chainwhip posted made me wonder what Cycle Training is like in other countries. How much of it is there? And do organisations from different countries communicate and collaborate?

**New ****Zealand **has imported British National Standards Cyclist Training
aka Bikeability:
http://can.org.nz/bikeability
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/cyclist-skills-training-guide/index...
http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/roadcode/cyclist-code/about-cycling/

Watching the excellent Spanish video Chainwhip posted made me wonder what Cycle Training is like in other countries. How much of it is there? And do organisations from different countries communicate and collaborate?

in Bournemouthland the Council have just booked their first Bikeability instructor training course, words cannot express the relief and elation I feel that this country is getting up to speed on the international picture.

I love saturdays
YouTube - Daft Punk - Around The World

Really? That's it? No information or interest at all in what is happening elsewhere?
I am Level 3 disappoint.

Really? That's it? No information or interest at all in what is happening elsewhere?
I am Level 3 disappoint.

Well we can't have that can we?

I recently had the chance to train a group of japanese researchers who were traveling the world looking into how cycling was being encouraged/handled in various countries. They were a fairly eminant bunch including a former chief engineer at Honda. Their report will go to the highest levels of the Japanese government.

It turns out that riding a bike in the road is not allowed in Japan. Anyone who has been to Tokyo will tell you that on pavement lanes are never going to happen there. There really is NO space. Riding around Holborn Circus on Boris bikes, with this guy from Honda shouting, "I feel freedom!" is a memory I will treasure.

The Japanese are looking at cycling in a very serious way and these guys were clear that if it took a change in the law to allow use of the roads then, "It will be done".

I hope to get a copy of their report in due course.

I know that there is a small amount going on in Sydney City Council and i don't think many other places in New South Wales. The way local goverment works is that SCC is like a borough - something like perhaps Westminster and the City combined - so nothing like "Greater London" but certainly bigger than "The City of London".

YouTube - Cycling in the City- Education

Points if you can guess what the yobbo host was originally famous for.

So the guys running that were trained by CTUK and use the small white handbook of CTUK as their bible. I met the fella (aussie) and his missus Jo (from Brighton i think) when he was back here doing his C&G maintenance course. Funny that he is using the Bikeability badges on his website ( http://bikewise.com.au/BikeWise.com.au/BikeWise.html ) but then perhaps they have imported it or something.

Anyway, Sydney has changed a fair bit in the time I have been away - more and more bikes on the roads but subsequently a louder motoring lobby too who seem to be getting their back up a bit. You can smell the fear!. They have some powerful delivers of their messages on shitty AM radio, but at least the discussion is getting out there and in public. Once upon a time it just wasn't an option - not unlike London I guess. The only campaign for cyling i remember from my childhood was a series of ads run for about 6 months with "legendary touring car driver Peter Brock" (he won 9 Bathursts!!) advising us that "the road is there to share".

I think Melbourne is more of a cycling city - Sydney is very hilly and hotter too, but Sydneysiders are pretty weakwilled and follow fashions easily, but also drop them just as quickly. It is also fairly unique as a new world city in that it pretty much developed naturally (in the way "old" European towns have) without any plan or grid system for about the first 150 years - the roads are just old tracks along ridges or in valleys out of town, but then (in the way of the new world) they have adapted them to suit the car - 3 lane suburban roads are fairly normal and when the first City Planning really took place most of the plans were designed around the car - Sydney used to have the world's largest tram network and from about 1965 it disappeared in 3 or 4 years.

Anyway, each time i go back i see more and more but it doesn't seem on the back of much more than a few cycleways (alongside motorways**) and the price of petrol rising. Outside of the central "borough" Sydney City Council there isn't much of an integrated plan as the next step up in governance is New South Wales - an area larger than France - there is no regional sydney body or anything. Until that happens (there is always talk) it is likely to remain a "free market" approach to encouraging cycling.

** you can also ride on the shoulder of some motorways in Sydney - funny shit riding along straight and flat as cars fly past you at 110kph. I worked in a hotel near the velodrome in 2005/6 when there were world cup meets on and the Dutch (Rabobank) team would all ride off in the morning for something like 40 out and 40 back along this motorway, but Theo Bos, twice, got punctures and needed to be picked up. Lazy farker....

wow...that was long winded. Wife & child away for a fortnight induced insomnia is a wonderful thing.

Cycling Savvy -program from Florida is the hottest hot in the world of cyclist empowerment right now. Their website is beyond excellent: http://cyclingsavvy.org/

Their website is beyond excellent: http://cyclingsavvy.org/

+1

just lost 30 mins on the site.... The animation on the FAQ is great. Wish I had a UK one

Yeh, that is an impressive site, thanks for posting that.

Very, very nice, and nicely American, with an intensive session on 'traffic laws'. Good work.

I'd be curious in what other respects it differs from other courses--can anyone summarise?

I'll go through it myself in due course but I don't have time right now.

useful link Chainwhip thanks, will circulate that, plenty food for thought.

I was just informed about this in Flanders, Belgium, but haven't contacted them yet: http://www.fietsersbond.be/educatie/educatiefaanbod/volwassenen.

Points if you can guess what the yobbo host was originally famous for.

Mike "I'll give you 50 bucks to eat thiiiis dry weetbix!" Whitney

Who dares wins/may have played cricket at one time too.

1pound please.

Bicycle Training in the Netherlands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16AO0_08r3o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMdmtM7Kv4c&feature=watch_response

Popular Mechanics Feb 1974
http://books.google.fi/books?id=YtQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA20&dq=popular%20mechanics%201974%20bicycle&hl=en&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=popular%20mechanics%201974%20bicycle&f=false

HOW TO COMMUTE SAFELY ON A BICYCLE
...
Plan your route carefully
...
Always use streets on which cars are parked. Distance between them and moving traffic is at least three feet, which gives you plenty of room. When there are no parked cars, traffic forces you right to the curb.
...

Popular Mechanics Feb 1974
http://books.google.fi/books?id=YtQDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA20&dq=popular%20mechanics%201974%20bicycle&hl=en&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=popular%20mechanics%201974%20bicycle&f=false

"Daily excersise on a bike ...will keep you sparkling healthy"
"Winston tastes good like a cigarette should" kids