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Sunday Times - 10th October 1999

Pedalling the safety message to cyclists

Worried about letting her daughter bike to school, Sarah Wynter found an instructor to help put them on the right road.
 
FOR many parents, including me, the school run is a logistical nightmare. How are you supposed to get two or more children to different schools, in different locations, especially as they often have to arrive at much the same time?  Sunday Times photo

An obvious solution would be to let one of the children cycle to school. That was my means of transport in the 1960s.Then, cycle helmets were a rarity and in fact we regarded those who wore them as sissies. We thought nothing of riding with "no hands" and my own particular speciality was to ride along with my eyes shut to the count of 10, a practice I gave up shortly after I hit a tree. 
Of course now I would be far more likely to collide with a car than a conifer. You don't have to be a road safety officer to notice that there's a lot more traffic on the roads. 
And this increase in traffic has led to a decrease in the number of children who cycle to school. Government figures show that a mere 2% of school-children use a bicycle to get to school. 
While I am more than happy to ride on the pavement or in the park, the mere idea of them riding on the road near our house in south London can be enough to fill me with dread. It was obvious then, that in order to make that transition from bicycle as toy to bicycle as fully fledged vehicle, some proper instruction was in order. So I decide to enlist the help of Cycle Training. 
This is a business set up by Simeon Bamford. He heads an army of 15 instructors, all of whom are committed cyclists. At £20 per hour one of them will come to your house and teach your child to cycle on the road. And if they consider that he or she is proficient enough they will teach them to ride to school, by plotting the best route, showing how to ride it safely as possible, and if necessary, accompanying them initially. 
When I told my husband that I had arranged a lesson for our nine-year-old daughter Julia, with a view to her eventually riding to school, he was appalled at the idea of her being taught on the road. So I rang back and meekly suggested that perhaps Julia could do a bit of "pavement work". I was politely but firmly told that they couldn't teach her on the pavement as it is against the law. 
And so I spent the night before the lesson dreaming of Julia wobbling off down the A3 after a masked and cloaked cycling instructor who was shouting "Isn't this great" While I pedalled after them, my screams of "Stop!" and "Brake!" being drowned out by the passing juggernauts. 
However, my fears were quite ill-founded. Our instructor was a friendly, fresh-faced woman called Vicky Carnegy. She immediately put my mind at rest by suggesting that as I was rather nervous of Julia being on the road, the best idea would be to go through some basic manoeuvres with Julia and myself on the road an thus teach me to ride protectively of Julia. 
She then got down to the business of checking our bikes to make sure they were roadworthy. If there had been a serious problem Vicky could have refused to give the lesson. She checked Julia's brakes, pumped up her tyres to rock -hardness as spongy tyres apparently encourage skidding, and produced a natty bag of tools to raise Julia's seat. 
Now I had always favoured the Groucho Marx way Julia used to ride her bike, with her knees rather near her chin, on the basis that if she forgot to brake she could slam her feet down. But apparently the proper position is with the rider seated, only just being able to touch the ground.
Finally, Vicky took great care to fit Julia with a cycle helmet, as an ill-fitting one can do more harm than good. 
After a quick look at my recently serviced bike, we were ready to begin. And immediately I made my first mistake. I had assumed that to ride protectively of Julia I had to ride in front of her, but no , my jobs was to shield her from the cars she could not easily see behind her. So after changing positions we repeated the procedure of placing our bikes about a metre from the side of the road. 
We then mounted up, looked over our right shoulders and indicated before riding off. At the beginning of each exercise Vicky asked Julia where the dangers were, because she wanted Julia to begin to think like a road user. She gave her lots of encouragement and never raised her voice. From my point of view it was excellent to have someone else reinforcing the dangers of the road but ion a positive way. 
Even when Julia took it upon herself to do a U-turn without bothering to look or indicate (luckily there wasn't anything coming), Vicky calmly explained why this was not a good idea. Whereas I would have got dreadfully cross, which would undoubetedly led to a sharply curtailed ride..
By the end of the one-hour lesson I felt much more confident about Julia being on the road with me, and us riding as a pair. While Vicky's assessment of Julia was completely in Tandem with mine, she felt Julia had coped pretty well. But she thought that she needed to practise the basic skills of controlling her bike when signalling or looking behind her in the park, before venturing back on the road. … 
And so, while I know that Julia's school is a mere bike ride away, in terms of proximity, I also know what a long way we have to go before she can actually cycle it. 

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