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This afternoon I had a session of cycling confidence training, with a nice chap called Rogan. When I booked it said there could be up to three students, but it turned out to be just me. We met in Lordship park, and started off with a conversation about what I was hoping to get out of the session, then did some exercises in the park - checking that I was able to signal and look behind without falling off the bike.
Then we went to some quiet residential streets nearby and did some more exercises - stopping and starting, turning corners both left and right and from main streets onto side streets and vice versa, a u-turn, and using a roundabout. These are all things that I've been doing already, but we talked quite a lot about where to be on the road, and when to signal, and when to look behind, and things like that. One of the main takeaways that I got is that I should be looking behind quite a lot more, which I must admit I'm still not super comfortable doing - I have a tendency to wobble a bit.
After that we went back to the park and practiced staying stable whilst moving very slowly, and turning tight corners, and he suggested that I spend some more time practicing these things in a park by myself.
I'd been getting more confident anyway, just by cycling more on increasingly familiar routes over the last couple of weeks, but this session was definitely still helpful - if nothing else it was a good reminder that I'm allowed to take up the lane if I need to.
I get a second lesson, which will probably be some time in January, and he's suggested that for that we plan a longer route with some tricky bits. He initially suggested my commute, but as that's from bed to computer these days I need to think of something else.
Then we went to some quiet residential streets nearby and did some more exercises - stopping and starting, turning corners both left and right and from main streets onto side streets and vice versa, a u-turn, and using a roundabout. These are all things that I've been doing already, but we talked quite a lot about where to be on the road, and when to signal, and when to look behind, and things like that. One of the main takeaways that I got is that I should be looking behind quite a lot more, which I must admit I'm still not super comfortable doing - I have a tendency to wobble a bit.
After that we went back to the park and practiced staying stable whilst moving very slowly, and turning tight corners, and he suggested that I spend some more time practicing these things in a park by myself.
I'd been getting more confident anyway, just by cycling more on increasingly familiar routes over the last couple of weeks, but this session was definitely still helpful - if nothing else it was a good reminder that I'm allowed to take up the lane if I need to.
I get a second lesson, which will probably be some time in January, and he's suggested that for that we plan a longer route with some tricky bits. He initially suggested my commute, but as that's from bed to computer these days I need to think of something else.
