juliet | Cycling lesson

Southwark Council subsidise a small quantity of free bike instruction for people who live/work in the borough. I checked, & they were happy to do an advanced observation-type lesson, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The instructor (from cyclinginstructor.com) showed up (they come to your door, although in this case we met on the street corner as it's easier) - nice chap called Sam, about my age, lovely Bob Jackson track frame fixie! He checked the bike over - stem a bit loose (which I knew & have been ignoring), chain v grubby (which I also knew - he recommended just changing it every few months as fixie chains wear quicker than geared bike ones), otherwise all functional.

We started off on some local quiet roads - he followed me to observe what I was doing. Stopped after a bit & he suggested that while I was doing well on the checking over shoulder, in heavy traffic I might want to make slightly longer glances & try to make eye contact with people (but also noted that I might well do that anyway in the appropriate circs - we were currently in v light traffic). He made a comment about a turn I'd made (waved across by one driver, another tried to squeeze around him - I'd noticed though & dealt with it appropriately, by ensuring that the other driver had seen me & stopped). We also discussed road positioning for turns (he said that my road positioning was generally fine). I usually treat give-way lines as I would if I were a car - well over on the L to turn L, well over on the R to turn R. Sam suggested sticking to the middle of the lane instead, whichever way you're turning - avoids cars edging up on either side.

We then went down to the Old Kent Road to deal with heavy traffic - then up as far as Westminster Bridge, Parliament Sq, & St James Park. Generally I'm doing fine (good!). Points made:

Unclip a bit later - I have a tendency to unclip v early, and it risks you losing the pedal.
Road positioning - generally fine, but in some cases take the middle of the lane a bit more (notably when queueing - if you've done filtering, pull in between the cars rather than staying on the side you've filtered on. I'm a bit erratic on this.).
Keep an eye well ahead of you - predict what's going to happen & pull out smoothly. (I'm doing this already.)
We had an extensive discussion about filtering, especially in the context of the Westminster Bridge roundabout. 9 times out of 10, you want to filter on the outside (the RHS). Drivers are much less likely to swerve into you, and they're more likely to see you as they check that side much more often than the inside. I've been doing this more often of late, and it definitely feels safer - there's a *lot* more room to manoevure. I need to do it more, though! (And to experiment a bit with that roundabout in particular, where I do always go up the inside, and he's right, there is less room to play with then.)

For less experienced cyclists the lesson is usually a bit more structured - he said he'd spend more time on the basics and talking about road positioning. I'd definitely recommend it - even if you do roughly know what you're doing, it's good to have someone point out your bad habits and give you tips. I certainly benefitted from it.