I love my job!

cyclingprop

EKE_38BPM wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

msmancunia wrote:

That's ace!

(please can you teach me to ride one-handed?)

You can't ride one-handed?! How do you signal?
Yes I can. Here goes:
Whilst riding, sit very upright (this shifts your weight back a little and makes balancing easier).
Lift one hand a little off the handle bar (we're talking millimetres here).
Look at where you want to go.
Keep pedalling as you lift your hand.

You WILL wobble. When you do, grip the handle bar as usual, get your balance again and get back on line.
Try again.
Try again.
Eventually you will go further between wobbles so lift your hand further from the handle bar.
Keep practicing.
Don't forget to do this with both hands, its no good being perfect riding with only your left hand on the bar and then all wobbly with riding with only your right hand of the bar.

I was doing some control games and wondered, can MsManc ride one handed yet?

Control games? Ride one handed?

I saw a cowgirl in a gimp mask :S

veronese68

I somehow read that as "mind control" and wondered if you were aiming for evil genius and world domination.

msmancunia

I've been practising, and am getting better! Not easy when it's so windy though.

In other news, I've completed my girl's bike cave. I'll try and post a pic later

EKE_38BPM

msmancunia wrote:

I've been practising, and am getting better! Not easy when it's so windy though.

In other news, I've completed my girl's bike cave. I'll try and post a pic later

Keep practising. I still wonder how you ride in traffic without signalling.

Soon enough you'll be riding uphill whilst peeling a banana then, as you crest the hill, grabbing a newspaper from a spectator, stuffing it down your jersey and doing up the zip so that you can keep warm during the descent.

jimmypippa

My amateur bit today happened when I passed someone who looked pretty competent and on a reasonable looking MTB cycling on the pavement.

I suggested that he'd be better off on the road and at the next traffic lights he pulled up (on the road) and told me I was right.

walkingbootweather

jimmypippa wrote:

My amateur bit today happened when I passed someone who looked pretty competent and on a reasonable looking MTB cycling on the pavement.

To be fair if I bought a MTB, I'd want to ride it 'off-road' too

msmancunia

EKE_38BPM wrote:

msmancunia wrote:

I've been practising, and am getting better! Not easy when it's so windy though.

In other news, I've completed my girl's bike cave. I'll try and post a pic later

Keep practising. I still wonder how you ride in traffic without signalling.

Soon enough you'll be riding uphill whilst peeling a banana then, as you crest the hill, grabbing a newspaper from a spectator, stuffing it down your jersey and doing up the zip so that you can keep warm during the descent.

I do signal! I just really really wobble when I'm doing it.

And I'm off on to France on a cycling holiday in July (get to see a couple of days of the Tour too) so I'm going to have to work on the banana and newspaper bit between now and then

jimmypippa

walkingbootweather wrote:

jimmypippa wrote:

My amateur bit today happened when I passed someone who looked pretty competent and on a reasonable looking MTB cycling on the pavement.

To be fair if I bought a MTB, I'd want to ride it 'off-road' too

How about "alongside road"

Maybe there is a market for that?

Mind you, I am always slightly surprised seeing people jogging on the pavements around here, as there is plenty of good countryside to run in (Kinder low is about 80-mins brisk walk/run from my front door and there is plenty a lot closer).

EKE_38BPM

It was a nice sunny day and I have spent all of it outside on my bike, teaching kids how to play in traffic.

ILMJ (a new acronym I'm trying out).

notsoblue

EKE_38BPM wrote:

It was a nice sunny day and I have spent all of it outside on my bike, teaching kids how to play in traffic.

ILMJ (a new acronym I'm trying out).

Any tips on how to teach someone how to look over their right shoulder before moving out to overtake a parked car with confidence? That and signalling assertively to stop people from overtaking too closely is something that comes so naturally to me but when riding with a less experienced I'm keenly aware that its something that beginners really struggle with.

veronese68

notsoblue wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

It was a nice sunny day and I have spent all of it outside on my bike, teaching kids how to play in traffic.

ILMJ (a new acronym I'm trying out).

Any tips on how to teach someone how to look over their right shoulder before moving out to overtake a parked car with confidence? That and signalling assertively to stop people from overtaking too closely is something that comes so naturally to me but when riding with a less experienced I'm keenly aware that its something that beginners really struggle with.

Also teaching people to look over their right shoulder without swerving right as they do so. I know it's all to do with not moving the rest of your body too much, but it's really hard to explain.

Cafewanda

Veronese68 wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

It was a nice sunny day and I have spent all of it outside on my bike, teaching kids how to play in traffic.

ILMJ (a new acronym I'm trying out).

Any tips on how to teach someone how to look over their right shoulder before moving out to overtake a parked car with confidence? That and signalling assertively to stop people from overtaking too closely is something that comes so naturally to me but when riding with a less experienced I'm keenly aware that its something that beginners really struggle with.

Also teaching people to look over their right shoulder without swerving right as they do so. I know it's all to do with not moving the rest of your body too much, but it's really hard to explain.

I had that problem for a few years. In my case it was down to sheer terror/lack of confidence on the road, plus gripping the bars too tightly. Learning to relax, even in traffic, helped a lot. Occasionally I relapse though.

EKE_38BPM

notsoblue wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

It was a nice sunny day and I have spent all of it outside on my bike, teaching kids how to play in traffic.

ILMJ (a new acronym I'm trying out).

Any tips on how to teach someone how to look over their right shoulder before moving out to overtake a parked car with confidence? That and signalling assertively to stop people from overtaking too closely is something that comes so naturally to me but when riding with a less experienced I'm keenly aware that its something that beginners really struggle with.

That is a difficult one. I'm not sure you can teach confidence but if you give the reasoning behind what you are advising, hopefully they will take it on board, believe in what you say and act on that belief.
Positioning:
Explain the "See and Be Seen" line (the imaginary line along the edge of parked vehicles along which you can see other road users and be seen by other road users). Obviously you are safest if you can see and be seen. If you are kerb-side of this line you can't see what is going on and other road users can't see you. If they stay outside of this line they shouldn't have to emerge from behind every parked car.
Looking:
You can explain to them on why to look (to see what is going on behind them, how close traffic is etc), advise when to look (early enough so that if they need to change their position it will be a smooth change of direction rather than an erratic swerve).
We tell our students that when you look you are communicating with drivers. Make eye contact to let drivers know that you have seen them and to check that they have seen you.

Signalling:
Signalling is another way of communicating with other road users. The order is:
Right shoulder check so that you know what us going on behind you. If there is nothing around, who are you signalling to?
Signal the direction you intend to move with you fingers together and your thumb at the top of your hand. Your arm should be straight and horizontal, so your hand is the same height as your shoulder. Hold the signal for three seconds then put your hands back on the handlebar with their fingers covering the brakes (where they should always be, unless signalling).
Shoulder check in the direction you intend to move (lifesaver check). A right check is to make sure some idiot isn't trying to overtake you as you turn. A left check is to check some idiot cyclist or motorcyclist isn't trying to undertake.
Ideally there is no gap between each of the three steps. Right shoulder check, signal for three seconds, hands back on the bars, lifesaver, turn.

Can this person look back with confidence? Somewhere away from traffic get them to ride away from you and call out "right shoulder" or "left shoulder" whilst holding some fingers of your hand up. They should look over that shoulder and shout how many fingers you are holding up. If they can't do that with confidence, practice until they can.
Can this person signal with confidence? If not, get them to ride in circles and call out left or right. Get them to scratch their nose with the hand you called out. With time the scratches become longer, eventually they can ride one handed indefinitely, so introduce proper signalling.

Keep pedaling when looking and signalling to help maintain balance.

I hope this helps.

notsoblue

Great, thanks EKE, I'll try your suggestions!

jimmypippa

THis TfL Lorry blindspot film might be useful for pointing out one problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzL0Kyk4m-8

EKE_38BPM

notsoblue wrote:

Great, thanks EKE, I'll try your suggestions!

No worries. I hope they work.

I haven't seen Cafewanda on here for quite a while.

Agent57

I always get a warm, fuzzy feeling when one of my kids picks up a new skill or finds confidence they were lacking. Last Saturday, for example, I had at least 5 riders in my group of 26 who weren't able to ride one-handed (ages around 7-8). My approach was almost identical to EKE's; just encouraging them to lift their hand a few mm from the bars, and let it hover there, holding on again if needed. They came on in great leaps, and by the end of the session all of them were riding one-handed for at least 20m. Win.

Also, this week I had no crashes (compared to 3 the week before).

EKE_38BPM

Agent57 wrote:

I always get a warm, fuzzy feeling when one of my kids picks up a new skill or finds confidence they were lacking. Last Saturday, for example, I had at least 5 riders in my group of 26 who weren't able to ride one-handed (ages around 7-8). My approach was almost identical to EKE's; just encouraging them to lift their hand a few mm from the bars, and let it hover there, holding on again if needed. They came on in great leaps, and by the end of the session all of them were riding one-handed for at least 20m. Win.

Also, this week I had no crashes (compared to 3 the week before).

Group of 26?! I guess this isn't on road training. Our maximum off road (in a playground or similar) group size is 16 with two instructors or, on road, 8 max with two instructors.

I'm guessing velodrome.

Agent57

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Group of 26?! I guess this isn't on road training. Our maximum off road (in a playground or similar) group size is 16 with two instructors or, on road, 8 max with two instructors.

I'm guessing velodrome.

Yeah, not on-road. I coach at a Go-Ride club that based at a 1.5km asphalt cycle circuit. Technically, a British Cycling Level 1 coach can coach up to 15, and a Level 2 up to 20 IIRC. We had 26 in my group with two coaches. The next group up had 35 kids this week, I think; but they also had 2 coaches so split into two sub-groups.

We are always very reluctant to turn anyone away and say "sorry, the club is full", especially as we don't actually know how many will turn up each week. We've well over 100 members, and on our busiest single session so far I think the record was 82 kids across all 5 groups (ages 6 - 16+). What with the constant struggle to retain coaches, and changes in availability, we do sometimes end up with more kids in our groups than we should really be coaching, but we can hardly say "sorry, too many of you have turned up this week, so 8 of you have to go home."

EKE_38BPM

Agent57 wrote:

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Group of 26?! I guess this isn't on road training. Our maximum off road (in a playground or similar) group size is 16 with two instructors or, on road, 8 max with two instructors.

I'm guessing velodrome.

Yeah, not on-road. I coach at a Go-Ride club that based at a 1.5km asphalt cycle circuit. Technically, a British Cycling Level 1 coach can coach up to 15, and a Level 2 up to 20 IIRC. We had 26 in my group with two coaches. The next group up had 35 kids this week, I think; but they also had 2 coaches so split into two sub-groups.

We are always very reluctant to turn anyone away and say "sorry, the club is full", especially as we don't actually know how many will turn up each week. We've well over 100 members, and on our busiest single session so far I think the record was 82 kids across all 5 groups (ages 6 - 16+). What with the constant struggle to retain coaches, and changes in availability, we do sometimes end up with more kids in our groups than we should really be coaching, but we can hardly say "sorry, too many of you have turned up this week, so 8 of you have to go home."

I'll have to google Go-Ride. What is the aim of the course? Cycling for transport/sport/fun/health etc?
Is the cycle circuit to replicate the road or single track or something other. I'm intrigued.
Edit: just googled. I see that it is aimed at sport. Looking for the next Hoy and Pendleton rather than riding safely on the road.

Agent57

Yeah, Go-Ride clubs are affiliated to British Cycling and are aimed at cycle sport. But certainly at the younger ages it's mostly about basic bike handling; braking, cornering, mounting, gears, observation etc. etc. As the kids great older we introduce more sport aspects such as race tactics, drafting, riding in groups, mass starts, sprinting...

Some of them do start time trials young though - we do 2 miles, 6 and 10 mile TTs every Thursday night, and youth crits on Wednesdays.

I'd like us to offer Bikeability alongside the racing, but we don't have enough coaches to run more groups at the same time.

Cafewanda

EKE_38BPM wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

Great, thanks EKE, I'll try your suggestions!

No worries. I hope they work.

I haven't seen Cafewanda on here for quite a while.

I lurk quite a bit these days hun. I'm actually working for my living too :shock:

veronese68

I saw a couple of Bikeability instructors in Kingston last night with 3 terrified looking adults trying to ride tricycles that looked like they were made of girders. looked very odd.

EKE_38BPM

Strange one this week.

I was working in a private religious girls school and the kids were ferried in by school bus, coach and Mum's taxi. The school insisted on a teacher AND a security guard accompanying us when we were out on the road (strange).

The kids had little road awareness and a few of them were doing things like pulling out in front of oncoming traffic and doing U-turns in front of moving traffic. My heart rate must have hit 380bpm instead of my usual 38 quite a few times. Usually in a course of 32 kids, about 30 pass and all 32 passing isn't unusual. This time we had to fail 10 of them.
Not good.

All of the molly-coddling that the kids have obviously results in a lack of road awareness. I've had a schools in inner London with traffic flying around as London traffic does and the kids were fine because they were used to it.

Also, EVERY SINGLE LESSON after lunch went really badly. The girls just didn't seem to concentrate or take anything in after lunch. The food was fine (no turkey twizzlers) but something was obviously causing an issue.
I brought this up with Mrs EKE (a primary school teacher) and she says not only can she see the difference between kids before and after lunch, but she can tell the difference between school dinners and packed lunch kids (crisps and haribo type fare).
I raised it as an issue with the school.

On the up-side, the girls were all very enthusiastic, I got a free lunch for four of the five days and I was out in the sun all day, every day.

rjsterry

EKE_38BPM wrote:

Strange one this week.

I was working in a private religious girls school and the kids were ferried in by school bus, coach and Mum's taxi. The school insisted on a teacher AND a security guard accompanying us when we were out on the road (strange).

The kids had little road awareness and a few of them were doing things like pulling out in front of oncoming traffic and doing U-turns in front of moving traffic. My heart rate must have hit 380bpm instead of my usual 38 quite a few times. Usually in a course of 32 kids, about 30 pass and all 32 passing isn't unusual. This time we had to fail 10 of them.
Not good.

All of the molly-coddling that the kids have obviously results in a lack of road awareness. I've had a schools in inner London with traffic flying around as London traffic does and the kids were fine because they were used to it.

Also, EVERY SINGLE LESSON after lunch went really badly. The girls just didn't seem to concentrate or take anything in after lunch. The food was fine (no turkey twizzlers) but something was obviously causing an issue.
I brought this up with Mrs EKE (a primary school teacher) and she says not only can she see the difference between kids before and after lunch, but she can tell the difference between school dinners and packed lunch kids (crisps and haribo type fare).
I raised it as an issue with the school.

On the up-side, the girls were all very enthusiastic, I got a free lunch for four of the five days and I was out in the sun all day, every day.

Doesn't need to be junk food - anything on the starchy side can make you a bit sleepy after lunch. Being a fan of such things myself, I usually need to kickstart the afternoon with a strong coffee.

samsbike

TailWindHome wrote:

There are a lot of cons to having kids - I have 4.

They are all balanced by the special moments. Teaching them to ride a bike is up there with the best of them.

quote]

I agree, got my 5.5 and 3.5 year old riding last week, pedalling and it was just a joy.

EKE_38BPM

I have posted on here many a time about how great it is doing a job which puts a smile on my face and how great it is to see everyone else smile when they see me and another instructor riding along with a snake of kids riding between us, but it seems WVM does not share the smiles of everyone else.

I was at the rear of the snake with seven kids in front of me and the lead instructor (my boss) heading the snake as we cycled along this road. We came out of a minor road and turned right. As I emerged from the junction I saw WVM speeding towards us (if not breaking the speed limit then definately faster than is prudent for that road) from the left, far enough away that it was safe for us all to emerge but close enough that he should/must have seen us all.
A few seconds later I looked back and saw WVM looking to overtake the snake as we were about to go around a parked car on the right. I moved to the right to block him. After we passed that parked car he attempted to undertake the snake as there was a parked car on the right of the road. I moved left to block him. By now he is beeping and swearing at me.
The lead instructor took the first left turn to get the snake safely out of this bloke's way but WVM stops and wants to 'talk' to me.

I got off of my bike and WVM swiftly exits of his van to discuss his views with me in a frank manner. In other words he charges out of his van and swears and rants at me. I somehow managed to stay calm and point out that I was deliberately blocking his way in an attempt to prevent him from dangerously passing a group of nine and ten year old children. Even though this is exactly what he was attempting to do, he says that he "is not the type of dickhead to endanger little kids". I calmly replied that he might not be, but I don't know that, so I have to do everything I can to keep them safe.

He asked for my name and my company name and when he wanted my phone number, my boss stepped in with the company phone number. He asked me if I was going to take his name and details but I said that it (he) wasn't worth it. He then drove off leaving me and the other instructors to calm the kids down and continue with the training.

After that episode my boss and I had a really good chat about what happened and other courses of action I could have taken, one of which was to let the nutter pass and if he did hit one (or more) of the kids, at least there would still be two instructors to keep the remaining kids calm and report the incident rather than an incident he heard of where the rear instructor was deliberately run down. The remaining instructor instructor then had to deal with the driver, the kids and the injured instructor, the emergency services and the school.

I must have did OK though, as I got promoted at the end of that day. I am now a fully accredited Bikeability Instructor. Yay! For the second time ever on this forum, I will use an emoticon. 8)

veronese68

Hooray for you, not so much for WVM.

Mr Sharky

I think you paid the WVM to be an ar5ehole, knowing full well that you would get promotion at the end for dealing with it so well.

Do you enjoy your job, btw?

rjsterry

EKE_38BPM wrote:

... as we cycled along this road. ...

What the hell is that loft conversion? All that's missing is the machine gun, the search light and some barbed wire.