Last updated 11:42, Monday, 28 July 2008

CYCLING training is on offer to try to stop Carlisle teenagers tearing through the city centre.

Cycling tips: PCSO’s Deborah Story, left, and Gillian Eilbeck in Carlisle city centre. Gillian is holding a cycle awareness day on August 7

Cycling proficiency skills will be taught free to 11 to 16-year-olds, on Thursday, August 7, at Devonshire Walk car park from 11am to 3pm.

The training will be led by Gillian Eilbeck, a police community support officer, who said: “Kids flying up and down the pedestrianised area on bikes is a big issue in the city centre. Elderly people often stop us and say they’ve nearly been hit or had their shopping bags knocked. Some of them have their legs scraped by the pedals as the kids go flying past.

“We keep telling them to get off the pavements and they say it’s too dangerous to cycle on the roads.

“So this is for the safety of both pedestrians and the cyclists themselves – I’ve seen them going down a one-way street the wrong way and go bolting over the road at a four way junction and nearly get wiped out by a bus. Hopefully by showing them how to use arm signals and so on we can keep them safer.”

Gillian, who teaches cycling proficiency at Plumpton School, added: “There will be no test; it’s just about equipping them with the skills.”

Also instructing will be Moragh Slee, of Capita, who is in charge of cycling proficiency in Carlisle.

They will also be giving away water bottles and postcode marking bikes with an ultraviolet pen if the owners want, which helps to recover them if stolen.