Created a Bike Share - Safety Video Suggestions?

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TopHatFox
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Created a Bike Share - Safety Video Suggestions?

Post by TopHatFox »

A few friends and I created a bike share over at fancy liberal arts college land. It has 10 Trek commuter-hybrid bikes from small frame size, to medium, to large, all with lights. Helmets are optional at the moment (to my slight protest).

I've read all of John Forester's book Effective Cycling and I agree and follow pretty much all of his cycling safety techniques; they are what's kept me safe with years of all-year riding in everywhere from South FL, to Western Massachusetts.

Do you have any safety videos that you'd recommend to place on the school's bike share website? I'm looking for (1) a road safety video and (2) an overview of basic bike mechanics video. I'd like them both to be concise, to the point, and cover the most important road safety and mechanics rules of cycling based on John Foresters work, or others like it. Ideally I'd like to avoid the whole: haha I was riding at night with no lights going against traffic on the sidewalk without a helmet.

What do you think - got any examples?
Last edited by TopHatFox on Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

jacob
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Re: Created a Bike Share - Safety Video Suggestions?

Post by jacob »

Depends on how low the bar is ... when I was young enough to ride a bike (in 1979 or so) every toddler+ was capable of getting on a bike without without falling off .. and in 1984, most 10 year olds (4th graders) were capable/confident of riding a bike around in minor city traffic on their own and obeying rudimentary traffic regulations without being stupid about it. The school/police ran an official test.

Conversely, when I was 29, I took at US Gov course in bike riding around a national lab explaining how to use a coaster brake to avoid getting brained because no handbrake existed---and most people apparently didn't realize this.

So where are we at now?

TopHatFox
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Re: Created a Bike Share - Safety Video Suggestions?

Post by TopHatFox »

jacob wrote:So where are we at now?
Let's assume they know how to balance on a bike, and that's it. The people I've seen using bikes around campus switch between sidewalk and road haphazardly, often go in the opposite direction of motor traffic, ride at night without lights, don't know how to use gears, don't know how to fix basic hick-ups like a fallen chain or adjusting saddle height or a flat, don't know what a U-lock is, are afraid of riding on the roads or using hand signals, have never ridden a bicycle in rain, don't know how to inflate a tire, etc.

Some kind of required brief bicycle riding test after the videos would also be excellent.

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Ego
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Re: Created a Bike Share - Safety Video Suggestions?

Post by Ego »

The League of American Bicyclists is the the most prominent advocacy group in the nation. They have lots of videos on their site that are youtube embeds so you could also embed them on the Uni site.

http://bikeleague.org/ridesmartvideos

vexed87
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Re: Created a Bike Share - Safety Video Suggestions?

Post by vexed87 »

Nice job on spreading the joy Zalo.

Obviously I can't share anything in terms of videos as here we ride on the other side of the road and that would have all sorts of (not so) hilarious consequences, but there's loads of great road side bicycle maintenance stuff so your bikes don't get abandoned on the side of the road after a simple flat etc.

See the UKs own GCN youtube channel which mixes informative vids with a good dose of comedy, they do target an international audience though so will run through the differences of riding in the UK, versus everywhere else. Check it out, if only for the comedy :)

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