Riding on More than instinct
Cycling has been my primary mode of transportation for decades but it was only a few weeks ago that I took my first bike skills course. This is something I should have done years ago. The course I took was an 18-hour CAN-BIKE II class and there were six of us enrolled. None of us were new to cycling: I knew everyone through one or another of Vancouver’s bike promotion campaigns. I’ve known the instructor and had heard about CAN-BIKE courses for years and I don’t know why it took me so long to show up at a course – it was just something I kept putting off.
It’s not that I had any serious doubts about my bike skills on the road – I just thought some formalized training could help me become a safer and more confident cyclist. The truth is that after committing to the course, I watched the date approach in my calendar and found about a dozen other things that seemed more important. Luckily, the small class size led me to believe that it would be cancelled if any of us pulled out.
So I went to the course and I am very glad I did. The capable instructor offered excellent information. There were in-class components, the “rock dodge” and other parking lot skills, and several hours of on-road cycling. We crossed the Granville Street Bridge four times because as our instructor Kate Scholz put it, “although you’ll probably always want to find an alternative, if you can safely cross this bridge all the others will seem easy.” On our second crossing, I got a huge adrenaline rush from “taking the lane,” and felt quite safe whipping down the south slope of the bridge three lanes out from the curb (’cause that’s the safest place to be if you aren’t taking one of the off ramps to Granville Island).
Despite many years of cycling, I realized my bike skills had been guided by instinct and whatever I picked up on the street from other cyclists. By taking an organized course I had access to: a trained instructor; teaching materials based on research and years of use and adaptation; and the questions and comments of other cyclists. At the very least, the course provided an extended conversation among seven cyclists on the four key concepts of manoeuvrability, visibility, predictability, and communication of cyclists on the road.
Those four concepts are considered from a cyclist’s perspective. For example, I had always understood “visibility” to refer to wearing bright clothing, white lights on the front, red lights on the back, and reflective bits on my panniers and jacket. But there is more to visibility than just ensuring that other road users see you at night and in the rain. It also means being within motorists’ field of vision. And that can sometimes mean being further to the left and within the flow of traffic.
Of course, when I mention this to other cyclists, they tell me this is common sense and they already knew that. Okay, it is common sense but I am not ashamed to admit that my common sense had previously directed me to be as far to the right as possible pretty much all of the time – even if it meant waiting until I could dart across a lane or two at an intersection.
I now have a better understanding of the theory regarding where to situate myself on the road. I have learned that keeping to the extreme right is not a golden rule, but can actually be the wrong place to ride if it doesn’t communicate your intended destination – like heading south across the Granville Street Bridge when you are not planning to make the right lane exits for Granville Island. But don’t take my word for it – take a bike skills course and find out for yourself!
Sign yourself up for an urban cycling course
Like anyone recently converted to anything, I am a huge advocate of bike skills courses for any cyclist (I am really only writing this so that you, dear reader, will sign up for and attend one). CAN-BIKE offers eleven types of courses focusing on kids, beginners, commuters, women, seniors, and instructors. The 18-hour courses are approximately $150 (depending on the number of participants). In Vancouver, there are CAN-BIKE courses or the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition’s free one-day Commuter Cycling Skills Course. The 7.5-hour VACC courses require a $35 deposit (returned at the end of class unless you don’t show up). In Victoria, the Bike to Work Week society runs a similar program. In Toronto, the City’s Recreation Centres offer CAN-BIKE.
South of the border, the League of American Bicyclists coordinates a list of bike skills courses, as well as one specifically designed for parents to teach their children to ride a bike. Another less formal means of skill-building is bike-buddying. The Bicycle Commuter Mentor program in North Carolina has a website for new cyclists to connect with current bike commuters.
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