Sunday 13 December 2009

The Box Technique

Apparently you need a licence to ride a bike. A flaming licence, as if going through all of this hassle wasn't enough I have to get a piece of paper from 'The Man' so I can ride my bicycle.


Well 'The Man' being The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents...on second thought, it might be worthwhile doing.
This week I tried the classic technique again, that instructors dish out on your cycling proficiency. I made a box with cones in a car park and I had to stay within those cones.

It sounds easy, however when you're challenged to make quick and sharp turns when normally they're slow and wide, it becomes very frustrating.

If you start with a size that you can comfortably ride around in, then slowly move the cones inward to decrease the size of the box and increase the difficulty.

When we set up my box, one end was marked with a big curb with a lampost in it. So I was forced to make the turns successfully at that end otherwise I would be launched off the bike.



    The pesky curb- where I crashed so many times- on the Bottom left.

I tried to ride around in a figure of eight in the box, this meant I had to control my speed when entering a turn. Also I had to keep looking forward instead of giving into the temptation of looking down, whilst riding in a big circle.

Look out for some videos and pictures of the box technique soon. Unfortunately it was too dark for pictures this time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Can I just say, what a great idea for a blog! I think its great of you to finally start learning - It's never to late!

Keep up the great work, i'll defiantly keep following your blog.