Introduction to ride marshal training
This course is an introduction to the role of Ride Marshal with London Cycling Campaign.
Local LCC groups run a number of different types of led-rides such as:
– family rides/community rides aimed at new and returning cyclists, these are mostly in the local neighbourhood and link up green spaces, quiet ways and popular places and activate new cycling insfrastructure
– protest and campaigning rides aimed at drawing attention to a particular campaign or infrastructure need
– health and leisure rides mostly for social, leisure and site seeing, often for more confident cyclists and popular with regular attendees
– feeder rides which can be quite big and complex and travel in from the local borough to events in the centre of London such as the LCC Women’s Freedom Ride and FreeCycle.
This course is intended as an introduction for people who would like to get more involved with rides in their local group or with other groups around London. It is also a refresher course for people who are already helping on rides regularly. It is open to anyone who is considering volunteering as a Ride Marshal with LCC and is suitable for cyclists who are confident riding on the road. The role of ride marshal is sometimes called ride assisstant.
The course is spilt in to two parts. The first part is class room based and participants discuss and explore the different elements of being a ride marshal. We look at how the Ride Leader would prepare for a ride, how they plan the ride to keep it safe, what does a risk assessment look like, what to expect on the ride itself, and most importantly the key tasks the ride leader is going to ask the ride marshals to perform.
The second part is a practical session on the road where participants will have a go at the various marshal roles with the group on the road, as well as taking on the other roles of Backstop and ride leader.
You need:
- Your own bike (in working order) and lock
- Some snacks
- To take all your belongings with you – once the classroom session is finished, the group will leave the classroom and won’t return
- Weather appropriate clothes
- To arrive on time
The venue allows us to take the bikes inside during the classroom element. The instructors will provide tabards for the practical session.
This series of training sessions runs in advance of the Women’s Freedom Ride on the 5th March and the Ride London Freecycle feeder rides in May. LCC have a plan to build the ride capacity in London so that in 2025 the Women’s Freedom ride is entirely marshalled by women and non-binary volunteers. This year we are aiming for 60%. As part of building that capacity, 60% of training places are reserved for women/non-binary participants. If these are not taken up, spare trainnig slots will be released in the week before training.
NB: Please arrive on time!
The door to the venue can be easy to miss, the what three words for the entrance is – https://what3words.com/flags.direct.mass
