Bike Commuting Workshop in Little Rock
In cooperation with the Community Bicyclist bike shop, Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas (BACA) will offer the League of American Bicyclists’ Bicycle Commuting Workshop on Friday evening, September 19th, 2008. This class is for adult cyclists who have recently started, or who are thinking about, commuting to work or school, or simply running errands around your community by bike. This three-hour follow-up to Road I covers topics including how to develop and encourage a commuting program in your workplace, bicycle choices and set-up for commuting, dealing with carrying cargo and clothing, route planning and selection, bike parking, riding in bad weather such as extreme heat, cold and rain, and night riding. The course will include an optional night ride to familiarize students with riding during the hours of darkness, and the use and effectiveness of bike head and tail lights and reflective gear.
Location: The Community Bicyclist, Tanglewood Shopping Center, 7509 Cantrell Road (intersection of Cantrell Road and Mississippi Avenue, on the south (back) side of the shopping center), Little Rock, Arkansas 72207. Meet on Friday evening, September 19, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The optional night riding demonstration will take place after twilight that evening. Students who wish to take part in the night ride should bring a functional bicycle, bicycle helmet, and their bike lights (white headlight, and red tail light or reflector).
Participation is by pre-registration only, so that we can have sufficient handouts and class material available for everyone.
You will get more out of this class if you have previously completed the Road I basic bicycling class (we'll be holding one the previous weekend, on September 12-13... see the General Discussion Forum), since that course includes the fundamentals of traffic safety and hazard avoidance.
The Community Bicyclist bike shop is our host for this class, which will not only be a great and convenient location, but also a good chance to show off their facilities and what they can do for the local cycling community.
If any questions, e-mail me at tomezell@aristotle.net, or call (501) 912-1047.
Tom Ezell
LCI #1853
Cost
According to the BACA site the cost for this class is a "$20 (tax-deductible) donation to BACA; (if money's a problem, scholarships can be available. Ask Tom about it.)".
I hope we can bring some of these classes to Conway eventually.
Greg Reddin
Classes in Conway
Greg:
If you guys would like to offer some of the League classes in Conway, just let me know, and we can work out a time and place to hold them. The biggest piece of logistics is finding somewhere to do the classroom part, about 4 hours or so in Road I, and a little over 2 hours in the Commuting workshop. These two classes seem to be the most popular these days, but we can also do some of the other courses or tailor a training session to a particular topic, like traffic law & skills, etc.
The League asks that we not "give away" the Bike Ed program, so I typically give all the registration fees to BACA for their advocacy work. I'll make the same offer to Cycle Conway, if you guys would like to use it as a fundraiser to help get things going...
I'll be up Friday evening for the RideCivil event if we want to discuss it a little more...
Location
My church would probably be happy to allow us to use their facilities for a class. As soon as we get ready to set something up I'll get in touch with them. We might also be able to use UCA. The Ride probably doesn't have enough room for a class, but I guess it depends on registration.
As for fees we are not yet an organization so I'm not sure how to handle that, but we can work it out.
Greg Reddin
Car Pool
Like Greg, I would like to see these classes in Conway as well. I am sure that can be arranged in the future; however, if anybody wants to go they can ride with me. As of right now, I plan on attending. My car can carry two bicycles on the roof and one in the trunk, 3 passengers plus a driver. My bars can accommodate more bikes but I only have two mounts, if you can find another one we can max it out. No sense in taking multiple cars from Conway if we are all headed to the same place; just reply if you want a ride and we can work out the details later.
Chad Files - http://www.chadfiles.com