Cycling Proficiency Test

Early this afternoon we saw some youngsters from the local junior school being given what we used to called training for the Cycling Proficiency Test, conducted on the road outside our house. Cycling helmets, hi-vis vests and lots of supervision, which is just as well as loon drivers aren’t uncommon round here.

I remember doing the test at Markeaton park in Derby, conducted in what was then a large empty concrete paddling pool. I also remember the certificate and triangular badge we were awarded when we passed the test. 

 

What I don't remember is anyone failing the test and neither do I remember how I got to Markeaton park with my bike. Did I cycle down the main road from our house, or was it from school? Like so many old memories, it sits there as a memory, but events surrounding it are gone. I don't know where the badge went either, or the bike.

The scheme is now called Bikeability apparently. It also has three levels and ten modules. I bet none of those modules tells you how to make a folded cigarette packet stick into the spokes so it sounds vaguely like an engine or a machine gun or whatever else our imaginations dreamed up.