Since he’s a BikeForums.net member, I had no trouble getting hold of Allan Dunlop of Cycling Solutions, and getting the scoop on what his site is all about.
In his own words:
We specialize in cycling education, conducting courses, workshops and instructor training as well as developing course curricula and educational materials.
We teach everything from learning to ride, to advanced courses (well beyond the LAB Bike Ed levels), and have done quite a bit of work in teaching school-based courses.This spring, we collaborated to develop the cycling element of a cycling/walking safety DVD for elementary school kids. We were contracted by the Way to Go! School program (a division of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia–the provincial automobile insurance body). The DVD is ready now and is being distributed to all the elementary schools in the province.Our latest project is a comprehensive instructor/coordinator support program. When I first started toward becoming an instructor in 2000, I found that beyond the instructor training, there was little in the way of resources I could draw on to coordinate and carry out courses. That’s one of the reasons why so few of the people certified as instructors actually continue, despite the fact that there’s a real demand for training.During the process, I developed a wide range of tools and materials that have been very useful, and I’m working at offering them to others via online subscription and/or purchase. An example is a comprehensive course cost calculator, currently an Excel spreadsheet, but now being converted to a database-driven web format. This is a great one for helping make sure a course turns a profit. In a few keystrokes I can calculate the per-person cost to charge for a course, taking into consideration venue costs, materials, number of instructors and the like. Right now I’m in the process of converting the sites to Drupal to accommodate this–what a learning curve!Until recently, I lived in Victoria, BC–quite the cycling mecca. For a number of reasons, my wife and I recently moved to San Antonio, so the scope of things has expanded somewhat.
There’s some more info on cycling stuff I’ve been involved in here: www.cyclingsolutions.ca/about.htm Cycling education is my passion, and it’s been really rewarding to take it from an interest to a full-time job.
You can reach Allan by email at info(at)cyclingsolutions.us