Cycle trainers, what's spoiling your day?

at least the kids we work with have fresh minds, sounds like a bluerinser

This week is just being awful, my voice is shot to bits so it's hurting to give the talks, glad I'm economical with words anyway.

Left a track pump in the shared storage at work as I had dr bikes 2 weekends running and it was my spare/dr bike one, the van guy didn't bring it which means either it's still sat in the storage and is fine or it's been pinched by another instructor. Only a £6 lidl one but still annoying as they won't have them again for a couple of weeks/months.

I have for the day become not a cycle instructor but a problem solver.

I've spent all last night and all morning calling and emailing people. It's tedious and draining but will help friends. I don't like it at all, reminds me so much of my old job the way I'm talking to people and things are indeed getting done at a record rate but it just all feels wrong. Once I get back from my holiday I'll have everyone on tip toe around me as they totally misunderstand what I value and where I'm coming from.

I'm now off to a meeting with the other people I work for that moved days just so I could make it. I don't know exactly what they want to make sure they can say to me or ask me but I know it's going to be something I don't want to hear. It's in a pub as always under the premise that everyone should love to drink, how many times can you order a coke with of someone and leave asap once talking work stops before they notice you don't turn up for shits and giggles.

Rumor has it the instructor I'm working with tomorrow has "fucked his back". I have that weird gut feeling that I'm going to leave home at 6am and ride 15 miles to find I'm left alone to cancel an SUD and ride back. Or worse some random is going to be parachuted in last minute and it will be a total train wreck.

The day was a train wreck, everything about the day was bad. I got bad news and I yelled at a friend for it. I was so distant during training I didn't feel I left people safe, how I managed to snake or demo or do anything useful is a mystery. The person I worked with either couldn't tell or didn't care how distant I was.

The fact you are aware you had a less than perfect day is what makes you a better trainer than many out there.

It doesn't feel like it.

Whoa. Easy on yourself fella. Do a good thing. For someone. Redress the balance. You'll feel better. You'll be more you.

Just a really rough day. I didn't get a job for a 2nd time trying and my future instructing is now tied to a company that I've come to feel will just erode my qualifications and quality of work I put out until nothing is left. It's hard to be passionate, it's like someone added an expiration date that's long before I can't ride as long as I need anymore even with bike+train or ebike to push they date away.

I'm quitting my ITO.

I've just been to cycle around a route for a borough ride that is in 2 days time with a dozen schools involved and following the risk assesment+route I was handed it's evident nobody has actually cycled the route. It's some crap google maps has chucked out that might have even been done a year ago before road alterations. Junction after junction after junction was missing. Of the few present some roundabouts had been cross roads or T junctions and vice versa. Some impassable gates that they somehow expect to get 100+ people past. Holes in the road, posts and other obstructions, expecting participants to jump off or up kerbs.

Does anyone know who/how you complain properly about this? @skydancer @dancing james @WillMelling

sorry to hear that, if its been done in an office by non riders no doubt why....
hope one of the others can answer properly. Gen theres a lot less links in the chain between me and people im training for so that dont happen.

No, I have worked at an SUD running parallel to another SUD the instructor who has put his name to this work was on. Even from an office I could do better than this, it's so so far beyond, I could give a friend who can't ride a bike and isn't an instructor half an hour with a laptop and vague idea of what we need and get better work than this.

You need initially to complain to the scheme that asked you to do this with such poor risk assessment. To escalate you need to contact the Bikeability Support team contactus@bikeability.org.uk

Do I need to wait before I email them?

Saw your PM. Good detail. yes wait for a response before contacting Bikeability.
Just be aware that since the job isn't exactly bikeability then they may not be able to address the issue.

Another option is to email the council with your concern. You are not an employee of that ITO but a freelancer so should be in a position to share your concerns that may affect them

I would email the ITO immediately and raise your concerns, i.e. that the risk assessment and the route map for this ride fail to reflect the reality on the 'road', and that in your view there are significant risks to participants should the ride go ahead in its current format. Give a few key examples. I think it only fair you give the organisers the opportunity to do something about this (whilst at the same time fulfilling your own duty of care).

Second port of call, should the ITO fail to respond adequately, would be the local authority on whose patch this is happening. I just hope you're not too attached or dependant on work from this ITO, some have been known to not respond well to individual Instructors sticking their head above the parapet - such is the reality/precarious position of the jobbing Instructor.

I'm almost certain it's part of bikeability plus, it's not teaching the outcomes but it's all part of the package now.

Yes it could be considered as bikeability + module 'ride' though its unlikely funded by DfT through B= funding

Did a load of extra stuff voluntary a bit ago as a colleague was "at breaking point". Turns out they just enjoy dancing about with the idea and so want it every which way; the idea someone other than them can do stuff is an affront, them having to much upsets them, them having less doesn't make them feel stressed enough to be happy. Sessions with them have become unpleasant and depending on the mood they are in depends on what they want to do and how they shape sessions, at the moment they are on a "risk assessment isn't important" kick as I've highlighted a huge gap in the forms and it turns out they hadn't been doing it properly anyway as "cycling is safe, what could go wrong" when actually someone will put a back out lifting a huge modded bike or crash with track riders on the velodrome or any number of other things. Oversimplified view of what we do carried over from the other shit company.

Went to book/pay for some cycle specific first aid cpd and was greeted with a really rude "why are you here? are you lost?" and my mind just clicked and was like "I'm a paying client, wtf". If I didn't feel obliged as I'd said to a friend who works with them I'd have left and just done the training another place.

Where?

Under some railway arch.

This week's half-term course weather...sun, hail, rain, wind, icy wind, icy rain but not hail, etc. And still they turned out. Steely kids in North London.