*interesting* bikes

[juliet]

I learnt to ride a penny farthing yesterday! (It belongs to my friend Charlotte, who rode it to Dunwich earlier this month, and it's a *lovely* machine.)

Turns out it's surprisingly straightforward (though apparently I got the hang of it quicker than average), but getting *down* again is a bit more tricky.

In other bike news, I've been offered a part-time cycle instructor job by CTUK, about which I am inordinately happy. Starting late Sept or early Oct.

Comments

[half_of_monty]

Yay bikes! Am just deciding whether to buy (and then resell when I leave) a bike for NY, or if that would be silly. (Prob not for commuting, but for out-of-city wanderings).

I see CTUK only really do London-based lessons. :-( Pity, I could probably do with being told which of my habits are really bad.

[lnr]

Yeah, I'd noticed that too. It makes the name seem a little over-ambitious :) I think Cambridge now offer Bikeability as part of being a cycling demonstration town, rather than a local scheme which I think is still offered in the rest of the county, but it's not well advertised and I don't know if they do the same one-on-one stuff, which looked really useful when Juliet did it the other year. I should find out.

[juliet]

Bikeability Level 3 has to be one-on-one, as I understand it, so if they're doing it for grownups then they should be covering that sort of lesson. (level 1 is 'how to ride a bike', level 2 is 'basic road riding', level 3 is more advanced road riding, roughly.)

[lnr]

It doesn't seem to be very well documented, but this seems to be what I'm looking for:

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/safety/education/adult+cycle+training.htm

£5 an hour seems very cheap!

[juliet]

They'll be subsidising it, I assume. It's definitely worth it!

[juliet]

Well, when I'm trained I might be talkable-into doing a private lesson next time I visit Oxford :)

I think there are other organisations/individuals doing similar things in various parts of the UK - I'd be surprised if Oxford didn't have *someone* operating, tbh!