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.