Thanks to funding from Westminster Council, LSE Residential Services could team up with Cycle Confident to offer free cycling lessons to students.

Cycle Confident can teach the very basics of riding a bike up to manoeuvring the most complex London road layouts. The training helps students at any level to improve their cycling skills.

Tobias Pang, 19, was one of the students who took advantage of these free lessons during November. He says:

Believe it or not, I had never been on a bike before. I come from Hong Kong, where skyscrapers dominate the streets and there is very limited access to bicycles.

I am glad that LSE invited Cycle Confident to teach classes and encourage safe cycling in London. In this era of global warming, there is a growing amount of pollution not only from factories, but also the road. In my view, it is good to cycle as part of a green lifestyle so as to create a greener city.

In my first lesson, I started by tapping my feet on the ground and balancing on the bike. It may sound tedious, but it really helps you to get a feel for the bike. Once you work that out it is not hard to carry on. It was during the second lesson that I learnt how to peddle, with trainer Joe helping me keeping my balance by holding onto the back of the bike. In the third lesson, Joe gave me the confidence that I needed to ride the bike on my own. I didn’t even notice he had let go! I was surprised and shocked that I was able to learn to cycle unaided in just three hours (even if just for a few yards to begin with)! Joe has been a great tutor and he has given me a lot of confidence. The feeling of achievement is hard to describe in words, but I can definitely remember the moment of joy when I cycled without any help!.

Before the training, I knew nothing about bicycles, I didn’t even know how to rent a Barclays bike.  Joe also taught me all the mechanics that I should know – It was not hard to understand after all.

I am now planning to undertake extra lessons with Southwark Council and consider cycling in parks when heading somewhere. It indeed saves time.

I do recommend you attend a training session with Cycle Confident! I am sure that you will get something even more valuable than confidence!

Residential Services will be arranging another week of lessons to take place near campus in February 2015. Interested students and staff can register now and will be given priority access to bookings.

However, anyone living, working, or studying in many London Boroughs can apply at any time to their own council for subsidised individual lessons with Cycle Confident.

Jennifer Frances
Residential Life Officer