“CTC Cycling for Health”, Swindon, UK

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES

The Problems to solve that there are people over 50 who lack skills and confidence in riding a bike and are not doing enough physical exercise. Objectives of the activity are to provide cycle training for people over 50 and improve their health through cycling.

IMPLEMENTATION

CTC’s (Cyclists’ Touring Club) eight week Cycling for Health course is aimed at beginners who receive cycle training to build up their confidence and skills to cycle more safely and learn about basic bike maintenance. The course takes place twice a week in a traffic-free environment on an athletics track. Participants can bring their own bike or hire one. A total of 6 courses over a six month period were held in Swindon in 2010.

Planning process:
Set up partnership with hospital and local GPs
Involve local disability and older people organisations
Find suitable practice areas
Hire or buy bike fleet
Set up weekly activity schedule
Promote activity through local press, posters, flyers

Partners involved: local authority, GPs and hospitals, disability and older people organisations, professional cycling instructors.

Obstacles:
Participant cancellations
Participants have different cycling skills levels
Limited availability of traffic-free environment and professional cycle instructors

Costs: The cost for running an eight-week Cycling for Health course depends on the following: hire cost of traffic-free area; hire charges for bike fleet; whether the bike officer delivers the activities or external cycle training consultants; the bike officer’s salary.

Generally, it can be said that a full course takes up approximately 20 days for administration and implementation.

CONCLUSIONS

Results and lessons learned:

Cycling for Health courses still a novelty hence always fully booked
ideal group size is a maximum of 12 participants per course per cycle instructor
every participant benefits from cycle training in a traffic-free environment; 60 % progress further to cycle training in traffic
70 % of course participants cycle more regularly as a result of this scheme, at least once a week and mainly for leisure
need to provide courses with different skills levels so that everyone can take part
charge for the course in order to keep cancellations to a minimum

Factors of success:

external grant funding crucial in kick-starting the activity
set target number of participants to be achieved
strong local partnership with regular communication
make bike fleet with different sized bikes available
different course levels on offer to cater for all abilities

Future prospects and potential for replication:
Once grant funding has come to an end the evidence collected should provide an incentive for local partnerships to run the scheme. In order to make the scheme commercially viable there must be a charge which could be shared between participants and health insurances.

Author & Contact Person:
Holger Schiller
E-mail: holger.schiller@ctc.org.uk
Tel:+44 1483 238 319
CTC - Charitable Trust
www.ctc.org