I don't know what everyone's stance on the League of American
Bicyclists is, but they do have some pretty decent curriculum for
teaching basics: http://www.bikeleague.org/resources/better/index.php I was recently certified in their instructor training course, and they
have OODLES of pretty high material (small books, full-colour
magaziney things etc) for teaching. I suppose that's what happens when
you've been funded for over a century...here's hoping...

In any case, their stuff is at least a good starting point to develop
your own curriculum and materials, in whatever political framework
suits ya!

Cheers, Clifford McCarten Co-Director, B!KE: The Peterborough Community Bike Shop 400 Wolfe St, Peterborough ON K9J 2P3 (705) 748-6681 http://www.communitybikeshop.org

On 24-Oct-09, at 4:10 PM, thethinktank-request@bikecollectives.org
wrote:

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Today's Topics:

1. Basic safety/maintenance manuals/curriculums (Erik Stockmeier)

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Message: 1 Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:51:09 -0500 From: Erik Stockmeier eriks@therecyclery.org To: The Think Tank thethinktank@bikecollectives.org Subject: [TheThinkTank] Basic safety/maintenance manuals/curriculums Message-ID: 129f365e0910231551q6b051d2fw6ed339e0f7e29650@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi all-

Like many shops, The Recyclery has given away free bicycles with
helmets and locks as part of the charitable end of our mission for some time.
For a number of reasons, including several new possible partnerships with Immigrant and Refugee groups in the Chicago area and the desire to qualitatively improve some of the long-term outcomes of our
Freecyclery program (which currently ends with the bicycle/signature exchange),
we are now considering developing a more thorough manual and 2-4 hour class curriculum. It would cover basic maintenance questions (patching
tires, adjusting brakes and derailleurs) as well as bike safety/common sense (avoiding theft, sharing the road) and would, of course, make clear
that The Recyclery exists as a place where they can get help if something
does go wrong.

However, not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I'm wondering if any
other shops have already developed a similar curriculum or handbook. If so,
want to share?

If not (but you are interested in the idea), would you be
interested in forming an internet working group to collaborate on such a resource
we could share? Right now I am working with one of our potential partners
and we are picturing a graphically-intense book, the text of which could
potentially be translated by people that work for their organization into a number of different languages. From there we would recruit some volunteer
graphic designers or find someone that knows how to work something like
scribus ( http://www.scribus.net/) to make a nice little booklet (I'm picturing something that could be reproduced photocopier/zine style or done up
more flashy) available to all.

OK.