London cycling instructors protest over slashed training budget

not everbody is a natural from being young , i guess..

There is a huge demand for adult cycle training. I can attest for this as I manage several London Borough's training programmes. 

The demand goes right across the spectrum from adult complete beginners to people returning to cycling to experienced cyclists who want to learn safe and responsible cycling skills. The National Standard in Cycle Training is supported by the Dft and is similar to the training delivered to motorcyclists. 

The most common feedback we receive is that people are prevented from cycling in the city because they are 'scared'. Training helps them as it gives trainees strategies and skills to ride in the urban environment. 

It is also amazing how many 'experienced' cyclists do not use their gears efficiently, ride with soft tyres, faulty brakes and low saddles. The training includes essential bike checks and instruction on how to use gears and to fit a bike. 

Nigel Garage wrote:

OK, I'm sure someone will indulge me. Why do grown adults need cycle training?

Cycling instructor Mariam Draaijer commented: “I’ve worked as a cycle Instructor for the last three years and I mainly work with women from the BAME community and help them to overcome barriers to cycling."

You're surely not the Nigel Garage who shows such concern (when it suits) for women and ethnic minorities? One would almost think that you aren't genuine when you do so.

To give your question the serious answer it very much does not deserve, many of the poorest people, and particularly women in BAME communities, do not have access to bicycles and/or safe places to ride them as children, and riding a bicycle and having the confidence to ride it safely in traffic is, like swimming, playing a musical instrument, speaking a foreign language and many other things that seem natural if one's lucky enough to be exposed to them in one's formative years, a very much harder skill to pick up in adulthood. Cycle instructors are brilliant at providing adults with the skills and confidence needed to become regular cyclists, with all the benefits that has for their mental and physical health (and consequent lessening of the burden on the NHS and other services) and the environment.

If you don't know this, you're an idiot; if you do, you're a troll. Take your pick.

Once again Nigel shows that he has no interest in encouraging active travel and getting more people on bikes.

He so remains consistently short of empathy.

I think you've answered the question above troll or idiot... clearly both.

Nigel Garage wrote:

No, what I'm saying (as I have already made clear) is that there are better ways to spend money promoting and implementing active travel than through paying people to do something that is either unnecessary or that should be individual responsibility. It's all a bit ridiculous really - I somehow managed to teach my 3 year old how to ride a bike all by myself. I mean why did I bother when the state could have done it?

Well it wasn't clear to me that when you said "Why do grown adults need cycle training?" what you meant was - why shoudl the state pay for grown adults to have cycle training.

I'm sure a perfectly reasonable argument could be made about better use of state funds, and that cycle training is not so expensive that an individual who can afford a bike could not also afford training.

But instead you asked a question that implied an adult that could not ride a bike was in some way deficient. Quite a sneering comment, on a par with your comemnts aboit "pint sized" politicians, or overweighht people. Despiye ludicrous statements that you wish to champion courtesy and politeness. 

Nigel Garage wrote:

If people don't have access to bicycles, what's the point in teaching them to ride a bike? That's a rhetorical question by the way, the answer is that there isn't one.

I'd expect that you, Nigel, learnt to ride as a child, aged about 4 to 7, with significant input from a committed parent, somewhere quiet like a park, a path or a garden. Not everyone has the required set of circumstances. I think Rendel might have been slightly clearer if he had chosen a different tense.

Nigel Garage wrote:

Or perhaps these people do own bikes, but your insinuation is that woman and/or BAME people don't have the capacity to learn how to ride a bike without assistance?

And perhaps it's not. Perhaps it's that some people, of any gender or ethnicity, need this help, but particularly some who through lack of opportunity in childhood or life conditions today. And perhaps, given the quote in the article, woman and BAME people are more likely to need it.

Nigel Garage wrote:

The truth is that anyone can learn to ride a bike by doing a 2 second google search and watching a video.

Citation needed, if ever there was one. I think just about every parent who has tried to teach a child to ride would disagree.

Nigel Garage wrote:

If they need someone for encouragement they can ask a friend or family to come with them. Local community groups and volunteers could also come together if there was a large demand for it.

Or possibly professionals. It turns out there is a demand, at least from a Mr A de P B Johnson of 10 Downing Street, That London, who wants 1,000 of them. Is he wrong on that?

Nigel Garage wrote:

Cycle instructors are, in my view, simply an overreach of the state and a profligate waste of money.

In your view. None so blind as will not see. Perhaps we should stop adult literacy training, or professional development training for, oh I dunno, surgeons. I did a 2 second Google search and found a vid on kidney transplants. Can I do yours?

Nigel Garage wrote:

Hence the saying "as easy as riding a bike".

'Just like riding a bike' and the less used 'as easy as riding a bike' refer to the ability to restart something you've previously learned after a period of not doing it. That's not a lot of help if you've never learned in the first place.

Point: missed.

(Or, perhaps more likely, ignored)

Definitely ignored. I mean I'm sure at the age of five, our Boo was given a bike without stabilisers which shows the care he got from his dad there which probably tells us a lot of why he is the way he is. Of course, the point he doesn't get is all the bits he mentioned (apart from breathing which he seemed to have learnt a minute after he was born) are taught at an early age because most parents teach their children and have access to them. However not all children get access to a swimming pool or a bike when growing up for whatever reasons. These skills are then taught for adults via public funding for health (and safety reasons). 

Try responding without denigrating.

You might even find that you like it!

You are talking about NG the forum troll who has changed his name 5 times in order to fool people into responding to him. Has been banned for 2 weeks. Promised to leave the forum for good
Whose MO is to bait people as can be seen even in this thread.
If you personally want to take them seriously and treat them as a normal poster, well good luck with that.

Flintshire Boy wrote:

Try responding without denigrating.

You might even find that you like it!

Thank you for such unvaluable advice. Rest assured that should I ever require an anonymous rightist sock puppet's advice as to the way I should address an anonymous far-right proven racist idiotic transparent troll you will definitely be my first port of call. Until such unlikely time, I shall follow my own counsel and I heartily recommend you keep yours.

Nigel Garage wrote:

"Insults are the last resort of insecure people with a crumbling position, trying to appear confident".

Yeah but you're still a tw!t eh. 

Riding a bike is the easy bit.
I mean, the whole mechanics of fighting gravity though balance while perched a few feet in the air by two very small strips of rubber.
That's the easy bit.

The hard bit is doing it right.
The hard bit is learning how to look over your shoulder and stay in a straight line; how to ride one handed and in a straight line ... and then how to do that with your center of gravity offset by the weight of your arm and hand while signalling.

There is more to riding a bike than just turning pedals.

Road sense is something that can be taught ... and it's often better coming from someone that knows what they are taking about.
Just as many car drivers could benefit from refresher lessons, maybe many of us cyclists would too*.

* But we wouldn't do them, and for exactly the same reason why we wouldn't for our cars.

Should the taxpayer fund maths, English, geography, physics, etc, lessons?

I had 15-18 months off riding in traffic and was hard work when I restarted. It was unnerving mixing with vehicles going at speed and it was an eye-opener to those who had never cycled in traffic before.
I'm sure anyone can ride a bike but riding in traffic is a rather different thing.