London Cycling Campaign Awards 2004

Two local schemes were nominated for the 2004 London Cycling Campaign Awards: Tower Hamlets Bike Skills Youth Training (Best Cycling Initiative for Young People or Children) run by Youth Action UK with funding from LB Tower Hamlets and our own Bike Buddy & Bike Recycling Scheme (Best Community Cycling Initiative).

On 13 October 2004 at the LCC AGM is was announced that the Tower Hamlets Bike Skills Youth Training scheme had won the "Best Cycling Initiative for Young People or Children" award!

Pictured receiving the award from l-r: Mark Butland, YAUK; Phillip Darnton, Chair of the National Cycling Strategy Board and the Bicycle Association; Cecelia Simon, YAUK; Ashraf Ali, LBTH.

Below are the nominations submitted for both schemes:

Best Cycling Initiative for Young People or Children : WINNER

Tower Hamlets Bike Skills Youth Training

Nominated by Gary Cummins

Children from Wellington School taking part in the scheme meet the Mayor of Tower Hamlets.

Bike Skills Youth Training is a scheme developed to provide basic, through to 'street level' bicycle proficiency to children and youths principally via school visits.

The scheme is an initiative sourcing from LB Tower Hamlets Planning and Environment (Transport) who with funding from TfL retained Youth Action UK (formerly Tower Hamlets Youth Service) to develop a scheme that provided cycle training for young people with the aim of giving them enough skills and confidence to cycle on the road.

Youth Action UK (YAUK) first set up a two-day training programme, attended by 10 local adults, including members of Tower Hamlets Wheelers the local bicycle campaign group and the borough's Youth Service, with the aim of developing a pool of local cycle trainers. This course gave the trainees an understanding of risk assessment, working with youths and designing a safe but challenging cycle training session.

At the start of the academic year all primary schools in the borough were sent information about the scheme inviting them to sign up. The training is offered to children in years 9 and 10. For each session, YAUK arrive at the school with a pool of bikes and all the equipment necessary for the training. The programme of training used by YAUK involves three stages:

1. Bike Skills training:
An initial assessment of each child's basic riding ability was carried out first. Those that were unable to ride were separated from the rest of the group and given one-to-one tuition in how to start or improve their bike riding. The majority of children in these beginner groups were able to ride a bike with a good level of confidence by the end of the session.

Those children able to ride were first required to demonstrate and improve their bike handling and balancing skills by practising around an obstacle course.

2. Off-road Street training:
The next stage was to go through the basics of riding on the road i.e. awareness, discipline, safety, positioning. Instruction was then given on junction procedure. This procedure was broken down into steps namely looking behind, signalling and manoeuvring. Each step was practiced individually using mock junction arrangements created within the playground space. All the steps learnt were then put together and the children were required to carry out left and right turning manoeuvres.

The children were assessed at this stage on whether they could carry out the junction procedure satisfactorily especially demonstrating the ability to ride safely and confidently whilst looking behind and signalling. Those that were deemed to have passed were then taken for a short session on the road.

3. On-road training:
This involved riding around the quieter streets surrounding the school and the children practicing the junction procedures. This was done by the group following the instructor and also turning one at a time with the instructor watching at the junction. Feedback was given to any of the children that needed to improve on aspects of their riding on the road.

This excellent scheme first ran successfully from December 2003-Easter 2004 working with 12 local schools carrying out 70 sessions involving 650 children.

Several schools have since made use of YAUK's services directly to increase the cycling activities they offer their pupils. Cycling trips to the local parks, Epping Forest and biking events in school sport days have resulted from initial involvement in this training scheme.

The second running of the scheme is now starting in September 2004 with the council funding also allowing for sessions to be carried out for older children via youth and community groups.

In summary:
This scheme uses a local company, employing local adults to visit local schools to train local children in bike skills, road safety and awareness.

Locomotion!

Best Community Cycling Initiative

Tower Hamlets Wheelers Bike Buddy & Bike Recycling Scheme

Nominated by Gary Cummins

In 2003 Tower Hamlets Wheelers (THW) won funding for a Bike Buddy & Bike Recycling Scheme which has become one of Wheelers biggest ever success stories.

Wheelers promote the scheme to potential cyclists and those new to cycling who live, work or study in Tower Hamlets. The scheme first offers them FREE professional cycle training with the London School of Cycling or Cycle Training UK. The recruits are sent for training with THW picking up the fee. Once the scheme members are confident enough to ride on the streets THW offer them a bike buddy to accompany them on their first few journeys helping to build their confidence and be shown new routes. Experienced Wheelers members volunteer their time to carry out the bike buddying.

The second part of the scheme offers the new cyclist an affordable bicycle. Members of THW with mechanical skills have renovated secondhand bicycles at the Wheelers monthly workshop and group bike building sessions. The bicycles are recovered from a variety of locations, some donated, others have been collected from local authorities after being abandoned and stripped on the streets. These bicycles are repaired, renovated and generally made road worthy and safe. They are then sold to the recruit for a nominal sum of £15-30, with any profit being given to a cycling charity.

The funding also enabled the Wheelers maintenance workshop equipment to be upgraded and added to. Bike Buddy members are encouraged to make use of the free monthly workshop to learn basic maintenance skills and get further advice.

The administration of the scheme has been kept lean and efficient. Whenever possible email and the internet is used saving valuable volunteer time. Promotion of the scheme has mainly been via a web page (with a high search engine ranking), the local press, posters placed in the borough's health centres/surgeries and local events attended by the Wheelers.

Joining the scheme itself is kept simple, filling in a short questionnaire the only requirement to sign up.
http://www.towerhamletswheelers.org.uk/bikebuddy/questionnaire1.html
New recruits are then posted a 'cycling in London' information pack and given the instructions about booking their initial training session.

A year on from the project getting underway, a follow up questionnaire is now being distributed to obtain a record of how many recruits have gained from the scheme and are now cycling more.

To date (September 2004) 52 people have returned questionnaires. Approximately 60% of those have received the cycle training and around 15 bikes have been recycled and passed onto Bike Buddy members. Just over 80% of the recruits are female with applicants of all ages coming from a wide range of the community. Sixteen had never ridden a bike before.

This scheme is a cycle campaign group working in its best capacity as an 'agent', marrying up the funding, the recruit and the machine, finally putting another cyclist onto the streets of London.