Have you passed your Cycling Proficiency?

[luckyfox]

I had to retake mine with the headmaster Mr Heatherington during lessons in junior school because i failed it so many times! I was rubbish as going round the cones and im quite sure i should never have been passed but I still have my badge today!

 

[snorri]

There was no cycle training during my schooldays, but I was a cycle trainer some 10 years ago.

 

[Turbo Rider]

Yep. Cones. School playground. Passed. I think I was 8 or 9 at the time. Stayed on the paths / BMX tracks after that as well. Driving a car probably taught me more when I actually went on the road...aged 35....glad I took it though...wouldn't feel safe or responsible without it...are we legally allowed to clothesline the man if we see him though and how long before he gave up trying to get back up?

 

[buggi]

I never took any kind of cycling test until I decided to become an instructor. On my first day the trainer told me my road positioning was excellent and he didn't have to teach me rules of the road or positioning so most of my training centred around getting what I knew out of my head, learning to break it down and teaching it. So you could assume from this that the bloke in question is talking bollox.
However I agree with him but for a different reason. I cycle completely differently to when I did when I first started, and back in those days I was always nearly getting knocked off (not because I was disobeying the rules of the road but because drivers weren't... Which is why he's talking bollox). I learned primary, and assertiveness from other cyclists, and not everyone has that opportunity. Now I'm very assertive, take control of the traffic and communicate a lot with drivers around me. I personally believe that bikeability should be on the school curriculum; not as a one time thing but as a regular lesson, just like PE is, from the age of 14 to 16 at least, if not before. By doing this, pupils will be confident proficient riders by the time they leave school, and know the rules of the road. By the time they learn to drive they will have road sense and know how to treat cyclists and understand their road position and why they filter. There would be a massive shift in culture within a few short years and I also believe less deaths among young men as there would be less that go on to become boy racers (the most common group of people who die on the road).
Quite simply, this guy is uneducated and if he had received bikeability training he would know better than to spout his mouth off. So maybe he should take his own advice.

 

[Bazzer]

Yep and still have my triangular badge (it has a bent pin IIRC) and certificate in the loft.
My mother recently recalled to my children how she and my father put me through it, only for a couple of months later one dark Sunday evening on the way home from church, for me to cycle into the back of a parked car.

 

[ianrauk]

Thanks @Bazzer , I remember getting a badge but couldn't remember what it looked like. Your post reminded me, it was a triangular jobbie. It was red and green wasn't it?

Edit: Found it on google

 

[winjim]

Passed at junior school in the 1980s, course run not by a copper, but a local chap who also ran a cycle touring club for the schoolkids. Learned an awful lot about bikes from him and went on loads of day trips, as well as weeks away in Snowdonia, Isle of Wight, and even the Netherlands. Learned more about good riding from being in that club than the cycling proficiency itself, although passing the test was a requirement to join.

 

[Saluki]

1975 is when I did my Cycling Proficiency test. I have my badge somewhere. I did it on the much loathed Raleigh Twenty.
The chap didn't tell you if you had passed or failed. You found out a week or two later when you got your badge and certificate, or not, as the case may have been.

 

[subaqua]

where's the box for did the course ,but mum was too mean to pay for a badge so didn't get the award at the end . ( that was a horrible horrible feeling watching all my school friends get the badge and certificate in the school hall and then a picture in the paper. )

eldest did bikeability in Yr 6 and told the instructor he was riding in the wrong road position approaching a junction, instructor said he knew better at which point my little darling daughter told him that cyclecraft author thought different. ( I have no ide where she gets her mouthy nature from - must be her mum)

 

[raleighnut]

Nope failed cycling proficiency cos my bike had a dented rear rim and locked up if you touched the back brake.
I had to rotate the rear tyre a quarter turn every 3 weeks or so to stop it wearing through in that spot until I could afford a new wheel.

 

[CopperBrompton]

Yep, passed my Cycling Proficiency test when I was five: was the deal with my parents, to allow me to ride on the road.

Life has moved on a little since then – not sure there are too many five-year-olds riding on the road on their own these days ...

 

[EthelF]

I did the German equivalent at primary school, when I must have been about 9. The local police operated a "traffic school" which was basically a little road network with road markings, traffic lights etc. The policemen trained and assessed us, those of us who passed got a sticker for our mudguards.
The funniest thing was, while everyone got to ride around on bikes, a select "lucky" few also got to have a go in kettcars, to mimic motor vehicles. I remember being annoyed I didn't get to have a go in a "car".

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Would have been 8 or 9 I guess, so late seventies, on a Raleigh Grifter most probably. Playground full of cones, I remember the class bad boy getting thrown off of the course for doing the slalom on his back wheel and very little else. I helped out running some sort of cycle training at my wife's primary school in the 90's, that was on quiet roads and seemed a bit more practical, although still not particularly useful for real safety. I'd agree with others my biggest 'training' was from riding a motorbike, although as I've always been interested in being better on the road I took IAM training (to completion in a car and until I couldn't stand the people I was being trained by on the bike). Then again I've been on and off with cycling, did it like crazy until I was 17, ignored it for around 5 years, did it for a couple of years until my motorbike accident, ignored it for around 18 years.

 

[Andrew Campbell]

Passed mine in the early eighties despite turning up for it with road rash covering most of the left side of my face having come of my BMX the weekend before. Happy days!
If cycling slowly round cones was an Olympic sport I could have been a contender.

 

[Specialeyes]

Ahhhh, Minehead Middle School playground, in the late 1970s. The whole yeargroup, a couple of policemen from the station opposite and a load of traffic cones. The most memorable parts being the slalom and stopping safely within a box. Everyone passed except two poor souls (not me, I hasten to add)... oh, the shame!