Newsletter - Life Cycle News | January
Sent: Wed, Jan 13th 2010, 13:33
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Welcome to the January edition of the electronic newsletter from Life Cycle UK the cycle promotion charity. In this issue:
New Year’s Revolutions!
Half term cycle training
We're hiring!
Journey planner
Female volunteer tandem riders needed
Know Your Bike courses
Lovely Dutchess
Naked Kiwis
Skills for commuters
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New Year’s Revolutions!
Happy new year everybody! Here at Life Cycle we'd like to help you shrug off the winter blues and get pedalling into 2010.
We have special one-to-one cycle training lessons for adults with experienced and qualified instructors. We can help anyone, from absolute beginners to advanced cyclists. You'll learn new skills, eliminate bad habits, gain more confidence and better ability out on the roads.
For Bristol residents, your first hour-long lesson costs just £5 and our instructors will come to you, on a day and time that you specify. For any further lessons, or for people living outside Bristol, the cost is £30 and we ask you to travel into Bristol for your lesson. We also have gift vouchers, enabling you to buy a training session for your loved ones as an unusual and inspiring gift.
Bike hire is available for absolute beginners (£5 per hour session), otherwise you need your own bike to learn on. Or try an Hourbike.
Watch this space in the New Year for subsidised cycle training in North Somerset and B&NES!
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Half term cycle training for 8 to 11 year olds in Bristol and Bath
Children get road-safe and out the house for Spring! Life Cycle offers special holiday courses to train children to Bikeability level 2 standard. Courses run for two hours each day for three days at Bristol Grammar School and Widcombe Junior School.
Training begins off-road, away from traffic, but then moves onto local roads. Children learn how to control their bikes, how to anticipate other road users' behaviour, and how to carry out manoeuvres with skill and confidence. We work with small groups of children so everyone gets lots of attention.
At the end of the course the children get certificates and we provide feedback to parents on their child's progress. A place on the course costs just £10 for all three days. Please phone us to book a place or download further information here.Phone Miranda on 0117 353 4580 or e-mail office@lifecycleuk.org.uk
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We're hiring!
Bike Minded is a new Life Cycle project supported with Lottery funding that aims to bring the benefits of cycling to people suffering from a range of mental health issues. Regular exercise is not just good for our bodies, it's good for our minds too. This project will work with people who are already accessing mental health support services to help them take up cycling as a way of taking more exercise and accessing nature. Through the Bike Minded programme participants will:
* be given a recycled bike and taught the skills to maintain and look after it
* have a one-to-one cycling training sessions to give them the confidence to ride their new bike
* participate in a series of leisure rides in the local countryside
We are looking for enthusiastic person who is interested in both cycling and mental health issues to take up a unique opportunity to develop this exciting new project. Bike Minded will support mental health service users and encourage them to cycle through a programme of bike maintenance and cycling activities.
The salary is £19,000 pro/rata and there's more information about the post on the jobs page of the Life Cycle website. The closing date for applications is 10th February 2010.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journey planner
Electronic cycle journey planners appear from time to time. None that we're aware of quite gets a journey right and plans it like a real human being would. But they're getting better and better all the time. Try this one created by Cambridge Cycling Campaign. It's an interesting prototype. And it was done by volunteers on a shoe-string budget. The Department for Transport has been working on something similar for at least five years (at what cost we can only imagine) and has still to unveil even a "beta" version. Yet again the voluntary sector leads the way!
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Female volunteer tandem riders needed!
Two's Company is Life Cycle's programme of tandem cycle rides for people who are blind or visually impaired. Many visually impaired people have limited opportunities to take exercise, keep fit, or enjoy the local countryside. They are keen to recapture the pleasures of riding on two wheels, experiencing the wind in their hair, the sounds and smells of the countryside, fresh air, and the thrill of moving quickly and quietly under their own power.
Life Cycle has a small fleet of tandems and a wonderful team of volunteer front riders. Some of the volunteers, and indeed some of the sight impaired back riders, also own tandems, which gives us access to more than 20 machines in total.
We runs from March to October and we cater for adults and for young people, all abilities from complete beginners through to experienced riders. A typical ride has up to eight tandems, each with a sighted person at the front and a visually impaired co-rider behind. The rides are enjoyable days out, and also opportunities for people to socialise and make new friends.
We're looking for strong and experienced female cyclists living in the Bristol area to join outr team of volunteers. You'll need a friendly outgoing personality and bags of common-sense and you also need to be at least 5'6" tall! The rides are huge fun and you'll get to meet some fascinating people. We will provide you with visual awareness training and other support. There's more information on the Life Cycle website.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Know Your Bike – Bike maintenance for absolute beginners
Life Cycle's ever popular Know Your Bike courses are up and running again. We have a schedule of courses set to run between now and the end of March. Places cost £10 and include a free multi-tool and a copy of Bike Easy: biking for beginners. (Please notet, these costs are heavily subsidised, and we are unlikely to be able to hold the special price beyond April).
The courses take place at Bristol's CREATE Centre, 6.00 p.m. over two consecutive Tuesdays:- 26th January and 2nd February
- 9th and 23rd February
- 2nd and 9th March
- 16th and 23rd March
We also have courses running at The Life Cycle Centre, Knowle, 9.30 a.m. on Saturdays:
- 16th January
- 13th February
- 20th February
- 13th March
We are also running three BMWs (that's Bike Maintenance Workshops) in the same period. These
are more advanced (you should have done a KYB course, or have the knowledge it gives you). The cost is £65 and includes a copy of the Haynes bike maintenance manual. BMWs run at The Life Cycle Centre starting at 9.30 a.m. on the following Saturdays:- 30th January
- 27th February
- 20th March
We will also be running a single Brompton bike maintenance workshop on Saturday, 23rd January, 9.30am.
There's more information about all of our courses on the Life Cycle website or give us a ring on 0117 353 4580 or e-mail admin@lifecycleuk.org.uk
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London to get free bike scheme
London's free bike rental programme is on schedule for a summer launch. The scheme will make 6,000 bikes available from 400 special docking stations throughout the capital. Users will pay an access fee to join, on a daily, weekly or yearly basis. The first half hour of cycling will be free of charge. The scheme is predicted to generate 40,000 more cycle journeys a day in central London.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lovely Dutchess
We love the Dutchess, a seductively styled utility bike from Cannondale. Created by Wytze van Mansum, a design student at the Delft University of Technology the bike was "designed for women keen to express their style amongst the fast paced and ever changing urban vibe."
It's designed for ease of use. It boasts low-maintained hub gears and hub brakes and the cables are hidden within the elegant, swooping frame. The handlebars double as a bike lock. Sadly, it's just a beautiful prototype at present, but let's hope it makes it into production. Watch a video of the Dutchess here.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naked Kiwis
Two young men caught cycling with no clothes on have escaped charges of offensive behaviour, but received a warning to wear protective head gear.
They were stopped at beach resort in New Zealand by an eagle-eyed policewoman who commented afterwards "They didn't seem drunk at all. That's what worried me." The men were issued with a ticking off for not wearing helmets and then sent them directly home.
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Skills for commuters
Here's a heartening story from a recent edition of The Guardian. An environmental reports explains how her initial fears about cycling in traffic were overcome thanks to cycle training lessons. Now she's transformed from a cautious to a confident rider.
If you'd like to undergo a similar transformation just give Life Cycle a ring on 0117 353 4580 or visit our website.
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- Wed, Jan 13th 2010, 13:33