Traffic Skills 101

It's official: I am safe to ride on Houston's streets!

Today, I completed the Traffic Skills course sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists. REI hosted the course taught by instructors Peter Wang and Nicole Volek.

We spent 8 hours in class; five hours were classroom work and a written test, and the other three were a variety of drills in the REI parking lot and a ride through Houston's Galleria area.

I would have like much more time on the bike . . . especially with the drills. While I was able to do all of the emergency maneuvers passably, more supervised practice doing them would have been much appreciated. Still, I got to spend time doing them under supervision, and I have some things to practice on weekend days that I don't feel like taking a long ride, but feel like riding some.

Goofy errors on my part kept me from acing the written test. However, I'm of the mind that the most important purpose of a test is to show me the areas needing extra attention from me, and I passed, so all was not lost.

I recommend the course. More information about Traffic Skills 101 can be found by clicking here.