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Tips for leading/teaching road class
Its good to have lcis ride the courses before working with students so that they have a better idea of what the students will face and can prepare or switch a student to a beginner or advanced group. I try to do this once an lci arrives, ask them to ride the course as the very first thing- this way you make the best use of the lcis usually arriving at different times (early, on time, and late). I even have very late lcis ride the course upon arrival even after the class has started bc the first part of the class I prepare to run solo. I usually aim to have the lcis who’d I like to work with the beginner group ride the beginner course and the others ride the intermediate course (you could also have 1 lci ride the beginner, 1 ride the advanced and the rest ride the intermediate).
I usually prepare to start the class on my own. This entails a intro/icebreaker and allowing them to introduce themselves--name, why they’re here, and where they live too. Then I introduce myself and BEB and go through the plan of the day (drills, snacks while doing written questions, afternoon riding...bath rooms, water, all activities are ‘challenge by choice,’ we will be grouping students of similar riding ability from 1skill builders [will stay at site and practice: mount dismount, red light green light, gears, straight riding while looking back, squiggly course, ‘kinda quick’ stop, rock dodge, to signaling] 2beginners, 3intermediates, 4advanced) This way lcis can be doing the quick mechanical check of bikes, riding the course, or finishing setting up food table.
Intro ends with having students lining up by skill level, self selecting at first with some prompts to help… beginner end of line… don’t know gears, unsure which brake stops which wheel, can’t take a hand off their bars while riding… intermediates are those who ride mostly bike paths, have done ~15 mile bike rides, can signal a turn while riding… on the advanced end are riders who… clip in, commute to work, ride in the rain… Once students are lined up lcis come one over and introduce themselves and are matched with their group.
For matching lcis to groups, here some tips: This is the tough part but make sure to revisit this and check in with all lcis to see if they have someone who should be in another group once drills have started. Working from making sure that we run the safest class possible, its better to have advanced/intermediate riders have a higher student to lci ratio than the beginners.
--The beginners need the most conscientious lcis. The beginners don't know what they don't know-- so potentially they’re the most at risk group. Intermediates and advanced know enough to not put themselves in danger, beginners don't. Skills they’re working on are straight line riding while looking back and signaling, starting and stopping, and gears, and end with intro to rock dodge. Ideally these groups are smaller if possible, 1:4 or 1:5 no more than 1:6 though. The goal of their afternoon ride is to take a lane. --Intermediates can be coached by any lci. They know enough to take decent care of themselves (in drills and on the ride) and coupled with the lcis looking out for them and coaching will learn something that day in a modestly challenging riding environment. Skills at this level to emphasize.. Straight line riding while looking back, signaling, rock dodge, quick stop, and usually just an intro to quick turn. These are 1 to:6. The goal of their afternoon ride is to deal with a mix of moderate situations, right turns at lights, left turns with arrows or turning lanes, bike lanes, door zones...
--Advanced riders will benefit most from an experienced lci. They have a challenging course and challenging skills to learn...quick turn and all others. These are 1 lci to 6 students too. The goal of their afternoon ride is an opportunity to be shown how to best negotiate a challenging nearby ride.
--Lastly the skill builders, this is the group of riders who are deemed unsafe to take out of the controlled parking lot/drills area. The rule I use for determining who is a skill builder is if they can ride a straight line for ~20 feet while looking back. Folks who can’t do this are usually not going to feel safe/be safe enough to learn anything out on even ‘quite’ roads so are better off learning in the drill area how to become a more confident/skilled rider. Activities to cover with the skill building riders are… mount dismount, start stop, red light green light, gears, modest rock dodge, straight line riding while looking back, modest quik stop, even modest signaling. Note all of these can be incorporated into a squiggly course drawn by you... Include a long straight section where they practice looking back, place a few tennis balls on the course so they can rock dodge, have them all be riding and you call out red light/green light while they’re all on the course, have an quick stop station (just a line where the do a modest quick stop - i say modest bc beginners/skill builders don't have the bike handling skills to do a ‘real’ quick stop, nor quick turn), and also include a signal section (...’for these ten feet of straight section try to signal a left turn..’ also note signaling i think is best taught as a progression...be able to loosen your grip on the bar, be able to flatten your grip/hand on the bar, be able to move your hand off the bar momentarily, be able to move your hand off the bar longer/indefinitely while signaling…)
At snack time i prepare to be available to students so lcis can ride other courses... like the advanced lci lead rides the intermediate course and the beginner lci rides the intermediate...etc so that they know how best to prepare their students.
If all the numbers work out matching lcis to groups, i think its best to have the lead not assigned to any one group, this way they can run the drill area with skill builders while others ride and so act as a base if anything arises and they can observe all students in drills and confer with lci that they have a similarly skilled group that matches their afternoon ride difficulty. Also after the drills are over lcis group numbers may have changed due to shuffling, so before the ride portion begins make sure look at ratios again.---Again, the main reason for this is to make sure no lci is overwhelmed with too many students, especially on the beginner side.
Ways to make sure beginner groups are small and no one group is over 6 students: --Use the skill builder group as a reservoir...have them ride there with you practicing and have beginner lcis can their better students out first, then come back for more students. --Advanced group lci can also lead some intermediates if needed to keep maximum ratios at 1:6. The advanced group lci can lead bc they’ve ridden the course at lunch, have some familiarity with that/those students they decided to send to the intermediate level, and advanced riders usually are interested in riding the intermediate course.
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