Starting Cycling

    We have two services designed to give people the confidence and knowledge to cycle successfully.

    Lessons

    All our instructors have been trained to National Standards level of “Bike-ability”. This means you will be trained to a standard consistent across the whole country.

    There are 3 levels of skills to progress through. Children would start with levels 1 & 2, progressing from the playground or park to cycle on less busy local roads. Teenager and adult beginners can also learn levels 1 & 2 in an off-road and quiet environment.

    Confident teenagers and adults can broaden their skills by learning level 3, using multi-lane roads and larger roundabouts. We provide both a complete package of lessons for the beginner or individual lessons tailored to the client. Whatever the need we can address and practice until perfect!

    Cost is ￡30 per hour.

    Guided Ride

    We know that riding on the roads in London can be scary, and if you have to navigate (确定行车路线) as well it can become a real hard task! The Guided Ride service takes all the stress out of it for you by providing the following:

    Route planned in advance to suit your skill level. Route map provided to you.

    Cycle and equipment checked. We will teach you a simple method to check basic roadworthiness (车辆性能) of your bike that you can perform on a weekly basis.

    Route discussed and focus given to any areas requiring special attention.

Cycle along with the instructor close behind. Here the traffic can be controlled by the instructor and rider observed.

    We currently cover London Zones 1 & 2. Please contact us if your requirements are outside of these areas.

    Cost ￡30 per hour.

    It is good to get in touch with your inner child from time to time, and obviously some people are willing to pay big money for the chance to do so in a proper environment. A Brooklyn-based adult preschool is charging customers between $333 and $999 for the chance to act like a kid again.

    At Preschool Mastermind in New York adults get to participate in show—and—tell, arts—and—crafts such as finger paint, games like musical chairs and even take naps. The month-long course also has class picture day where the adults are expected to have a field trip and a parent day.

    30-year-old Michelle Joni Lapidos, the brain behind the adult preschool, studied childhood education and has always wanted to be a preschool teacher. She's always on the lookout for new ways to get people in touch with the freedom of childhood. A friend encouraged her to start the mastermind course instead.

    According to Candice, her blogger friend, Preschool Mastermind gives adults a chance to relearn and master the things that they failed to understand as children. "I realized all the significances of what we learn in preschool," said founder Michelle Joni, "People come here and get in touch with their inner child. It's magical. We are bringing ourselves back to another place, another time with ourselves when we are more believing in ourselves, more confident and ready to take on the world."

    "One person's here because they want to learn not to be so serious." Michelle said. "Another's here to learn to be more confident." She explained that most of the classes were planned. However, Joni added that while the planned activities were fun, it was often the spontaneous(自发的)moments that attracted students. "It's the things you don't plan for, the sharing between friends and learning from each other."

    US Space Agency Returns to Mars with InSight Lander

    The American space agency's lander InSight is to arrive on Mars at the end of November, 2018. Unlike NASA's Curiosity rover, InSight will not move across the planet's surface. Instead it will become the first spacecraft (航天器) used only for exploring underground. It will study the geography of Mars, searching for signs of Martian (火星的) quakes.

    InSight is a project of U.S. and Europe. It is 6 meters long and 1.5 meters wide. It weighs 360kilograms. InSight's 1 .8 -meter robotic arm will put two experiments in place. Both are designed toexplore underground of Mars to learn about the inside.

    Bruce Banerdt is the lead scientist for InSight. He viewed the spacecraft as a robot that can take care of itself. "It's got its own brain. It's got an arm. It can listen and feel things. It pulls its own power out of the sun," he noted.

    Thomas Zurbuchen, one of the heads in NASA, said the results of the InSight project could "change the way we think about the inside of our earth." But, first, InSight will have to land on Mars undamaged. Since Mars exploration started in the 1960s, only about 40 percent of the explorations have succeeded.

    Tom Hoffman is InSight's project manager. He said earlier successes do not lessen the concerns for each new exploration. "That we ve done it before doesn't mean we're not nervous and excited about doing it again," he said.

    InSight will enter the Martian atmosphere (大气层) traveling at 19,800 kilometers an hour. It will slow for landing on a wide flat area on Mars. If all goes well, InSight could carry out its experiments in about 10 weeks. The InSight project is expected to continue for one Martian year, about two years on Earth.

    I live on the West Coast of British Columbia with my husband and three children. Our day started like any other day. My husband left for work in the north of the town, which is an hour and a half's drive. The younger children caught their bus to school ten minutes away. Our oldest attends high school and is a 40-minute drive away. I work at home in the office, working on the computer.

    It was November 2006 and the news had reported gusty winds. When the winds started to get strong I shut the computer down and tried to phone my husband. I left a message telling him the winds were blowing at 80 to 90 km/hr. As I hung up the phone, I heard a tree crack. I went outside and stood in the driveway. Another tree exploded and my heart was racing.

    When the school bus carrying the youngsters arrived, I ran to get them. No sooner had we made it to the house than another tree exploded. The children were clearly scared, so I loaded them up into the car and we parked in the middle of the yard, where no trees could land on us, it was starting to get dark.

    My oldest son didn't come home on the bus and my husband was stranded at work. I called the high school and reached my son. He said he was stranded and didn't know what to do. I called a friend in town for help. He managed to get my son home to me. Finally, my husband managed to get home.

    We had been prepared for such events, as we had a generator, candles, a wood stove, fresh water, batteries and two freezers full of food. We were without power for five days. But we didn't panic we had all the emergency equipment we needed. Thankfully, none of our neighbours were injured, but the damage was extensive. We are witnessing climate change. We need to be prepared.

    At first, Michael Surrell didn't see the black smoke or flames shooting from the windows of his neighbors' home. Then they got a call from one of his daughters: "The house next door is on fire!" He went over and saw three women crying madly on their porch (门廊).

    "The baby's in the second floor!" one of the women cried. Though the fire department had been called, Surrell, then 64, bravely ran inside. "The baby" was Tiara Roberts, the woman's granddaughter and a playmate of Surrell's three youngest kids.

Entering the burning house was like "running into a bucket of black paint," Surrell says. The thick smoke caused him to stumble blindly around, burned his eyes, and made it impossible to breathe. The conditions would have been dangerous for anyone, but for Surrell, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(慢性阻塞性肺病), they were life-threatening.

    Taking a deep breath, he moved around in the overwhelming darkness. Because the house had a similar layout to his, he found the stairs and made it to the second floor. Then he heard a soft but clear moan. Still unable to see, Surrell fell to his knees on the hot wood floor. He crawled toward the sound, feeling around for any sign of the girl. Finally, he touched something. A shoe, then an ankle. He pulled Tiara toward him, scooped her into his arms and stood. Turning, he fought through the smoke and ran blindly into the blackness…

    Surrell woke up in the hospital a couple of days later and spent over a week in the hospital. Tiara was released from the hospital after a few days. The fire worsened Surrell's pulmonary condition, and he feels the effects even two years later. As a result, he takes extra medication that helps open his airways. "It's a small price to pay," he says. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I wouldn't give it a second thought."

    I was recently asked what inspires me most. That was easy to answer: I live and breathe track and field. It is the only sport that has allowed me to spread my wings and truly fly. I have struggled a lot in my life after being diagnosed(诊断) with a learning disability at the age of three. I was also born four months too early, weighing less than four pounds. Even at 17, I'm still working to catch up. Mentally I'm on the level of a 12­year­old. I had to repeat the third and fifth grade, which caused me a lot of stress and embarrassment.

    I was joked so much that I would often hide in the bathroom instead of going to class. My parents always gave me lots of love and support, but I still felt worthless most of the time. I'm also quite shy, so making and keeping friends has always been a challenge.

    Then one day when I was 12, my life changed forever, My parents decided my younger brother and I should try track. From that moment on my life was different. I was a natural mid­distance runner. When I was on the track, the other kids just saw me and my speed. No one saw my learning disability. For the first time in my life I felt normal.

    When I entered high school, I joined the track team and the coach quickly saw my talent. I was selected to run on the A team for cross­county and the A team for indoor and outdoor track. I'm on the school team for the 4×400­meter and 4×800­meter relays, and colleges are even interested in me!

    My cross­county team won the 2011 County and Regional Championship. When I accepted my award, my mom cried because she was so proud of me, and for once, I was proud of myself.

    Even though I'm a special­education student, I now know that my learning disability does not define(限定) me. I can hold my head up high because track has allowed me to spread my wings and truly fly!