Without practicing one will not become a better cyclist. This part of the website contains a whole set of bicycle skills exercises. These exercises are made available in the form of text, images, and instructional videos. There are two reasons for doing these exercises:
- One experiences that cycling is becoming more difficult, for example because one has switched to an e-bike.
- One expects that cycling will become more difficult in the future, and one wants to invest now with the aim of continuing to cycle for as long as possible.
The descriptions of the exercises are primarily intended for cycling instructors; it is assumed that they explain the exercises to the cyclists and give feedback on how they perform the exercises. Nevertheless, the exercises are described in such a way that a cyclist can also independently learn how to do them. However, it is both more efficient and more fun to do these exercises together with a cycling instructor, especially if you practice in a group.
All exercises are based on insights from cognitive neuroscience. That is why we group these exercises on the basis of the same four questions that we have also used to describe these insights:
- How do we stay upright?
- How do we steer?
- How do we see danger?
- What does fear do to us?
Before starting the exercises, a number of preconditions must be met, and these are discussed under the heading “Surrounding issues”. These issues are rather diverse: a fitting bicycle, appropriate clothing, mounting and riding off, sustained motivation, and the tools that are used in the exercises.
All information on the Doing-section of this website has come about in cooperation with a group of cycling instructors. The exercises have been proposed and described by a neuroscientist, they were tested by the cycling instructors, and their comments helped improving the exercises as well as their descriptions.