Plenty of eyebrows may have been raised last week when Plymouth was named the most cycle-friendly city in Britain, but the Devon city has now become the latest place in the country to roll out Balanceability, an initiative designed to help children aged between two and a half and six years to quickly learn the fundamentals of cycling by using balance bikes.
Developed by Gloucestershire mother Maria Yates who had identified a need for a separate training programme to lead into the existing Bikeability courses on offer, Balanceability also ties in with the government’s Start Active, Stay Active initiative, and has the backing of former world and Olympic champion, Chris Boardman.
Cycling instructors Roy and Karen Wyle Smith of EliteVELO are now bringing the course to Plymouth with the help of national under-23 mountain bike champion Carla Haines. The course starts next Monday 11 June and will be held at the Woolwell Centre on Darklake Lane. Further information is available buy calling Karen Wyle Smith on 07930 830537 or online at www.elitevelo.com.
Commenting last year on Balanceability, Boardman, who also wore the Tour de France’s maillot jaune on three separate occasions during his career, said: "Balanceability is the fundamental starting point for children's cycling and an excellent opportunity to promote active lifestyles at the earliest possible age.
"I can see it also provides a natural lead into Bikeability for schools and I would encourage all schools to give children the opportunity to use balance bikes."
The programme’s founder, Maria Yates, “Learning to ride a bike is a right of passage for every child but sadly many children have real difficulty making the transition from stabilisers resulting in many 6 and 7 year olds being unable to ride.
“I developed Balanceability to help parents with this challenge and to get their kids riding a bicycle confidently and safely.
“Balance Bikes are an excellent way to teach young children how to ride a with confidence and this structured programme provides teachers, cycle trainers and children’s activity leaders an accredited, proven programme to follow.
“My mission is now to make Balanceability available across the whole of the UK to every child that would otherwise not have the opportunity to learn how to ride a bike and support parents that are finding this a challenge.”
The programme also has the support of Patricia Maude MBE, who lectures in physical education at Homerton College, University of Cambridge and is the author of the book Physical Children, Active Teaching.
“The Balanceability programme offers children a great opportunity to become competent cyclists at an early age through the development of balance and control,” she said.
“The programme is made up of progressive learning experiences, with fun ways to learn to cycle on balance bikes. This programme is a foundation for cyclists of the future, through which young children can practise and achieve the balance needed to ride a bicycle, but without the encumbrance of pedals.
“The recently published reports in July 2011 of both the Chief Medical Officers’ Report and the NHS ‘Physical Activity Guidelines for Children (Under 5 years), call for an increase in physical activity for most children.
“The Balanceability programme ably contributes to meeting the physical activity guidelines for healthy development as well as providing a success-orientated experience, helping to build up children’s confidence and sense of achievement.”
Full details of Balanceability can be found on the programme’s website, which also has details of where existing courses are located.
Help us to fund our site
We’ve noticed you’re using an ad blocker. If you like road.cc, but you don’t like ads, please consider subscribing to the site to support us directly. As a subscriber you can read road.cc ad-free, from as little as £1.99.
If you don’t want to subscribe, please turn your ad blocker off. The revenue from adverts helps to fund our site.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £1.99. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Radar tells me their closing speed, if they are slowing and how far away. Then I decide to say a prayer. The change of light pattern is incidental.
Quite so, which is why our village 20mph zone covers the whole residential extent. Of course, enforcement is another thing..
£4.
No, that's very doubtful while proper testing would be fully destructive.
In that £1000 exactly scenario, beginners should probably be made aware that pedals will be extra.
What's wrong with dropping down on to the Millenium Bridge, or the swing bridge, then the brief, but satisfying climb back up the hill? #training....
The relatives might of course disagree, but in general I'd countenance a relatively light sentence* if only we could fix it so that those who...
Id forgotten that I got a second hand set of project two's for my getting to work bike over twenty years back.
My bet is that all these tires popping off are from people with bad pressure gauges or they're simply just putting too much air in on purpose. ...
David9694 - you were right! These new autonomous vehicles really are conspiring to run out of control!...