Hey Folks,
We are hoping to create a riding/ road skills component to our drop-in youth shop program and I am wondering about the logistics/legalities of how to approach this!
For over six month now we've been hosting a drop-in shop program as a collaboration between Pedal Society and Kickstand community bikes one afternoon a week where teens can drop in and get free support servicing their bikes, volunteer on shop projects to learn mechanics skills, and volunteer as part of our earn a bike program.In an effort to make the program as low barrier as possible we have left it as a drop in program vs. having a formal sign up, etc. The drop in is slowly growing a devoted crew of regulars. YAY!
It has come to our attention that many teens, especially those who have not previously had access to a bike, do not have competency navigating the roads safely. In an effort to remedy this and build road skills and riding into our program, our thought is to make one week of the month our teen community ride and another day our road skills learning in the parking lot. It seems like hosting a road skills/riding session as a drop-in, with different people showing up every week would come with a host of challenges and complexities.
Right now, our best idea, is that youth who will be leaving the parking lot with us on monthly rides will need a consent form and to have demonstrated a certain aptitude for riding. We're not exactly sure how to test for this or how exactly to go about teaching road skills on a drop in basis on a different monthly day while other folks are in the shop with the other instructor. How can we build on road skills when different people may show up every week?
Therefore, my associated questions are:
- Structure: Does anyone have any feedback on how to structure this? If we have different youth coming in all the time, it's kind of hard to build on road skills that take more than one day to teach
- is it feasible to have a drop in program that teaches riding skills?
- If many teenagers want to come on a community ride, do we need to cap it like a formal program (2 instructors per 10 youth) or is there a way to facilitate a larger more open community ride?
I'd love to hear any feedback folks have for how to make this happen.
Woohoo!
Sarah
--
Sarah Duby FioRito
Bike Club Youth Program Coordinator