Cycle Training

Families South West - September 1999

Stay on your bikes!

As your child gets older you are faced with the really difficult problem of when to let them cycle by themselves. Cycling on the roads is difficult and requires competence but telling our children to use the pavement instead is not the real answer. Training them in cycling skills will help them to use the roads they need an help them to realise that they can get quickly to wherever they want to go. Fortunately there are many schemes in the SW London area which train children in road cycling skills and even some which will help their parents to get back on the road as well.
Individual and family training is offered by a company called simply Cycle Training. Instructors will come to your home and take you out on the roads that you need to use … each lesson tailored to personal needs. Instructors will work out suitable routes to school or work and go over them with you pointing out any difficulties. They will even teach children and adults to ride from scratch.
With all this on offer is there any good reason not to give it all a go and get everyone in the family out on their bikes? If we all replaced just one car journey a week with a bike… think what an enormous difference it would make to our streets, our lives and to the whole of London.