More on Thursday's Road1 Class

 

As I wrote previously, Gary Parker was the lead instructor for Thursday's class. I assisted with the parking lot drills. Sandra Crisp handled the administrative chores. And Brian Potter arrived inthe afternoon to help with testing, both the practical road test and the multiple choice test.

Our students were: Linda and Ronald from the Tulsa Public Schools PE program, Jonah from Tom's Bicycles, and Mike, Ren, Mark, and Chris from Lee's Bicycles.

I went into Tulsa on Friday and stopped at Tom's. I asked Jonah what he thought of the instruction. He said it made him think about many of the aspects of cycling that he almost takes for granted. There are some items we covered that would be of great benefit to a new rider, and he says he's going to recommend Road1 for any newbies who may be interested.

We're lucky in that we enjoy the support of local shops. The owners are behind the program and they're putting employees through it. Tom and I talked about a couple of ideas to spread the word further. It almost feels like we've been priming the pump for the last 2 years, and it's about to start working.

One last thing: Tom is one silver-tongued devil! I need a new pair of cycling shoes and looked through the discount rack. Hey, size 48 wide is hard to find, and my oddly-shaped feet are a difficult fit! I tried some Shimanos that were 20% off. Then Tom asked me to try some Sidis in my size. "If you try these, you'll buy them!" he said. He was right. They fit wonderfully. Now all I have to do is scrape together the cash.