Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Birmingham launches Bikeability scheme for children

Training scheme designed to complement other aspects of Birmingham Cycle Revolution

The Bikeability initiative will see 4,500 Birmingham kids being given cycle safety training as the city looks to shed its reputation as being the UK city with the lowest level of cycling participation. The scheme has been launched to complement the wider aims of the Birmingham Cycle Revolution – the city’s 20-year strategy to make cycling a mainstream form of transport in the city.

Birmingham City Council received £180,000 from the Government for Bikeability during 2014/15 and the initiative was launched at Chad Vale Primary School in Edgbaston by the city’s head of community safety, Councillor James McKay.

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, McKay said that proper training was a vital means of improving levels of cycling participation.

“If we are to take Birmingham from being the city with the poorest level of cycling participation, we need to ensure that young people are given the opportunity to learn how to ride their bikes safely in all settings – both on and off-road.

“These Bikeability sessions will give children a great opportunity to improve their riding skills, increasing confidence levels that will hopefully then translate into more of them using two wheels as their preferred mode of transport.”

Branded as ‘cycling proficiency for the 21st Century’, there are three levels of Bikeability. Level 1 is purely about controlling a bike. Level 2 has more focus on road skills and is usually tackled by children in Years 5 or 6. Level 3 then deals with more challenging traffic situations and is generally aimed at children of secondary school age.

McKay said that proper training was a vital part of the city’s efforts to embrace cycling in the long-term.

“The Birmingham Cycle Revolution is providing much-needed improvements to cycling routes and infrastructure, but it is just as important to deliver sessions like this if we are to achieve the aims of our programme.”

Birmingham Cycle Revolution has been criticised by Conservative councillor Deirdre Alden who called cycling ‘a discriminatory form of transport’ and said it was only of benefit to ‘young, white men’.

However, £24.3m has been secured and in June the Big Birmingham Bikes initiative was announced. This will see 2,000 bikes being given away with a further 3,000 available for free hire in a bid to improve employment prospects in deprived parts of the city.

The targets for Birmingham Cycle Revolution are for five per cent of all trips in the city to be made by bike by 2023 and 10 per cent by 2033.

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

Add new comment

10 comments

Avatar
horizontal dropout | 9 years ago
0 likes

Also, congokid, the age range is generally 9-11 (year 5&6) for levels 1 and 2 and 6 upwards for level 3, though I don't think it is commonly taught in secondary school.

Level 1 and 2 are usually done consecutively, level 3 is done some time later after they have had time to practice their road skills. Most children who do level 1 go on to do level 2 and many of those complete it. Not many go on to level 3.

There is very little real evaluation after training, I guess all the budget is spent on actual training. It's very difficult to discover the outcome because it could be that 5 years later a youngster gets back into cycling. My local training organisation is trying to find ways of evaluating but it's not easy with no spare budget.

Avatar
horizontal dropout | 9 years ago
0 likes

"Why on earth are they wearing all that crap?"

I'm more anti helmet than pro helmet but beginner cyclists of that age are probably the one user group for whom a helmet might be useful - quite likely to fall over particularly when in a group in a playground and with (correct me if I'm wrong) a relatively soft bounce.

The bit that is missing is at a later stage informing them of the arguments for and against helmets - and that they have a choice.

Sadly congokid is right, many parents won't let their children cycle on the roads even after training. A possible solution there is to get the adults to do the training at the same time.

Avatar
congokid | 9 years ago
0 likes

What age range are the 4,500 kids, and will they each complete all three levels of the Bikeability training? And will the outcome of the training be evaluated in any way, ie, will the numbers of trained kids cycling to school or as a leisure pursuit be measured, or is it simply going to be a case of KSI counts before and after?

I can't see the parents of any kid, Bikeability trained or not, letting them out on their bikes given the current conditions on Birmingham's roads.

Avatar
brooksby | 9 years ago
0 likes

Don't they know that they're just teaching these poor impressionable children to participate in a discriminatory activity??? Disgusting of Birmingham City Council. You'd think they'd know better (  3 )

Avatar
rich22222 | 9 years ago
0 likes

Chad Vale school is at the bottom of my road, cycling past at school start/finish time is one of the most dangerous activities I can imagine.

Avatar
tonylen | 9 years ago
0 likes

What crap? A simple tabard to show drivers they are part of a group under instruction on a road (yes they have eight hours on actual -shock horror-roads these days) and a helmet-cant see much wrong with that

The ethos behind Bikeability is actually giving kids some road skills to use in varying situations rather than teaching ,by rote,various manoeuvres on the playground like in the olden days-and it definitely categorically promotes cycling as a fun,non dangerous activity-that is the point of the training

Instructors take a four day course delivered by such infamous anti cycling bodies as CTC and British Cycling

Hopefully many of these kids will get the bug and have a lifetime of cycling ahead of them-maybe some of them will even go on to make snarky comments on road bike forums,but blimey ,there really are better targets.

Avatar
felixcat replied to tonylen | 9 years ago
0 likes
tonylen wrote:

A simple tabard to show drivers they are part of a group under instruction on a road (yes they have eight hours on actual -shock horror-roads these days) and a helmet-cant see much wrong with that

It looks to me as if these children are on a fenced playground, yet cycling is still so dangerous that they need hiviz (who is going to miss seeing them and knock them off?) and foam hats. They will be in as much danger running round the playground in normal play.

Avatar
bikebot | 9 years ago
0 likes

Sadly it's not just cycling. In the last few years I've been amazed at how often I've seen the kids at the local schools having to dress up in those ghastly vests for no reason at all. Mostly for any activity which involves them being in a field, very dangerous things fields.

And then they send the children home at the end of the day. In their school uniforms, which of course is a black blazer...

Avatar
Paul J | 9 years ago
0 likes

When you see photos like that, you have to wonder if the likes of British Cycling are actively trying to kill off any idea kids might have that cycling could be a normal activity.

Sigh.

It tells you something about the place of cycling in the culture of the UK when even cycling bodies seem to be doing their best to paint the activity as exceptionally dangerous and weird.

Avatar
Peowpeowpeowlasers | 9 years ago
0 likes

Why on earth are they wearing all that crap?

Latest Comments