Cycling Savvy progress

Cycling Savvy is going to happen in Louisville.

It's exciting enough to think that that I probably will type it several times here in the coming months!

Cycling Savvy (CS) is, of course, a very good adult bicycle education program. To present it well requires practice of a different presentation style than what I used to teach the TS101 classes. I've mentioned before that I found the TS101 a bit pedantic compared to the Cycling Savvy--too much reliance on "you need to know this" with less "here's a scenario, and, given the facts we've presented, how would you as a student navigate this series of interchanges?" TS101 is about putting information in front of people and then testing on whether they bothered to retain it. CS is about empowering people to move about their environment mindfully and safely.

With all that in mind, Jenn and I are having to rehearse better phrasing. A LOT of better phrasing. I'm comfortable with the information I'm presenting, but I'm having to work on my phrasing and pace. I want to avoid being pedantic, and be engaging.

Of course, there is more to it than just the script for the classroom session (Truth and Techniques). There is the scripting for the Train Your Bike sessions, in which we teach handling skills to enhance riders' confidence in themselves. This has to be right, so that students get a positive experience and that expanded personal confidence.

And, then, the big deal, the Tour of Louisville. The Tour is what really makes the class worth taking, because it gives students opportunity to put their new knowledge to work. The strategies the students are being taught to employ are successful for me already, or I wouldn't be excited to teach them to others. The students have to have success with the strategies, or it all falls apart. The Tour is designed to build on successes, and give students a chance to talk about those successes with each other.

So, yes, a lot of thought goes in to creating a Tour that brings students into increasing levels of complexity and successes with those bigger challenges. There are lots of intersection combinations I would like to put in the Tour, but distance and time limitations prevent my doing so.

I have a couple opportunities to include local images and video in the T&T session, and want to make that happen. I need to make some trips with Jenn to practice using two cameras to make this work right.

I won't be making any big profits on this program for quite a while.

Cycling Savvy courses scheduled!

Life got in the way of our scheduled Cycling Savvy class last fall. It was frustrating, but we (Jenn and I) learned a couple things, and have done and are doing a better job of preparing for upcoming classes. Finally, we can say we have classes (plural) on the schedule for 2014!

Why am I excited? Well, after learning of Cycling Savvy a few years ago, and hearing that it had a much better approach to helping riders learn information, skills, and techniques (as opposed to telling them that they needed to know information, skills, etc., as has been one critique of the Traffic Skills 101 class put on by the League of American Wheelmen).

I took the Cycling Savvy class in 2012, and was impressed with the teaching style. It really does reach people differently.

I have been wanting to bring Cycling Savvy to Louisville for almost as long as I've known about it. The more I read and learned about the program, the more I believed that this is a good program to have in Louisville. That Jenn also is excited about Cycling Savvy (perhaps even more so than I) meant that now we have two Cycling Savvy instructors in Louisville!

All of which leads to this link. And this link.

Course dates and locations are now confirmed! Registration is open.

Death of a friend

Not long after my father was transferred to Louisville in the early 1970s, my mother "returned to the workforce" (as the saying went). I was but a lad--I was in sixth grade at the time--and knew little of the whys then, nor of where the story arc would lead.

Whether conscious of it or not, Mom's return to the working world became a step toward the eventual formal breakup of my parents' marriage. This was a good thing (tm).

Anyway, one of Mom's first supervisors was Kay Armstrong. As Mom's surname at the time was also Armstrong, an alliance was, not surprisingly, formed. It became a solid strong friendship, and one that helped both over the ensuing years. Their customers would sometimes ask whether they were related, as they shared the surname. Their friendship was a source of emotional support for my mother before, during, and after the divorce from my father.

I have been a beneficiary of the good that emanated from Kay, both directly and indirectly. She and her husband were both very good to me over the years. I cannot possibly repay them. I can only hope that the good I try to do "pays it forward" in some small way.

Kay and my mother shared many bonds of friendship, one of which was that both had survived forms of cancer. Yeah, the "big C."

Kay passed away Monday. It was pretty sudden for all involved. The best part is that she did not seem to suffer. Sometimes "best possible outcomes" are still unhappy ones.