Cycle Training

We offer a cycle training service to people of all ages and abilities in Derby and Derbyshire. We aim to help you develop your cycling skills and confidence so you can cycle whenever and wherever you want in safety, from learn to ride sessions to advanced commuting courses.

We now have a base in Duffield, just north of Derby, with a traffic-free training area and bikes and equipment for hire.

Basics
Our cycle trainers are all professionally trained to a national accredited scheme called the National Standard, or Bikeability ("Cycling Proficiancy for the 21st Century") and have a first aid qualification.

You will need to bring a bike, which must be in a roadworthy condition. If you don't currently own a bike, please let us know in advance and we will provide one for you.

The exact format of a session is flexible and can be tailored to exactly what you want. We have found two formats are particularly popular:

1. Practical Cycle Training

These are usually 1:1 and last about 1.5 hours. Everyone starts off-road, in a traffic free car park or park. We do a brief assessment and tailor the session from there. We then carry out a bike safety check and give you guidance on your bike’s set-up and make any relevant adjustments. Then the cycling starts! We make the session as relevant to you as possible and ideally will cycle one of your regular routes with you – to the shops, a leisure route or to work.

Novice cyclists can expect the first session to cover the essentials off road - balance, steering, starting off and stopping, looking behind and signalling. Intermediates will get on the roads fairly soon and can expect the session to cover road positioning, junctions and road awareness and, for the more advanced, complex junctions, queues and lane discipline.

We finish the session by providing you with free local maps and information on cycling.

Cost
Cost is £30 for an hour. Concessions available.

2. Cycling Courses

We have developed some new Cycling Courses in response to a need among some of our clients to find out more about cycling then we can cover in a practical training session. Our new cycling courses are ideal for new or returner cyclists and work equally well for individuals, small groups and families.

The cycling course consists of a series of 3 sessions of 1.5 hours in length which will include a mixture of practical cycle training and theoretical workshops. You will receive handouts after each session, local maps and information on cycling and a certificate at the end.

A sample course will cover, in Session 1, a basic bike check, a look at the different sorts of bike and an initial practical training session; Session 2 will look at equipment and clothing/ load-carrying and security, route planning, tactics and the second practical training session, and Session 3 will cover basic bike maintenance, tactics 2, cycling with children/ cycling and public transport/ cycling in difficult conditions and a final practical trainng session, ideally on one of your regular routes.

Cost
Cost is £40 per 1.5 hour session for up to 3 people. Concessions available.