Since the start of the 2024 school year, the Grenoble Cycling School has opened to adults! After a year of deployment to school audiences and families, adults are included in the courses, still 100% free thanks to the social and climate shield!
Grenoble maintains its course to remain a pioneer in active mobility
Grenoble, the first cycling city in France since 2021 and Cycling Capital 2022, sees the share of professional journeys by bike or scooter among its residents continuing to increase: 22.1% in 2023 (report from the Ministry of Ecological Transition ). The city continues to develop a network of safe cycle paths, such as Chronovélo, and has invested in bicycle parking to encourage the use of this ecological mode of transport. The Grenoble Cycling School is another tool to further expand the practice and allow the most remote audiences to have simple and free access to learning to cycle or to strengthening their knowledge in this area.
Review after one year and new features for 2024
In 2023, to further strengthen its position as an exemplary cycling city, the municipality of Grenoble, helped by a national grant and thanks to the social and climate shield, decided to create the first municipal cycling school in France: the École du Vélo de Grenoble (EVG). After a year of deployment, particularly among school audiences and children, the results speak for themselves: 53 classes (i.e. 4 times more than the previous year), 900 students’ personal bicycles revised, 1,200 students trained and even 800 children trained outside of schools!
But the EVG is not limited to training and assistance with children. Many adults have never been able to learn how to ride a bike or ride a bike in the city. After a year, the EVG made it possible to support and train 150 adults and children during family outings with the Maisons des Habitant-es (MDH) supervised by the ADTC following a call for tenders from the City. 100 people were also trained in routine bicycle maintenance. This is just the beginning for adults, the deployment continues among these audiences!
How stag do for adults
Adult classes take place from Monday to Friday mornings, afternoons and evenings. There are 3 levels of courses and 30 hours of training for a complete course. Registrations are made via the EVG and with the MDH network. Lessons are free from the speed ring. Bikes, helmets, visibility vests… All the necessary equipment is provided to participants.
More info on Grenoble.fr
An experience that goes beyond simple cycling
Since the start of the 2024 school year, EVG has included adults in these training programs. The objective is to reach 350 people trained in cycling per year, already 100 people have registered in 2 months.
This logic goes beyond the simple fact of learning to ride a bike. It is about allowing sometimes isolated audiences to access freedom of movement and autonomy in travel. In this regard, women represent a significant proportion of adults who are far from cycling, and they are also the group most comfortable with admitting that they do not know how to do it (unlike men according to the figures). Learning to ride a bike then becomes a tool of emancipation, becoming an essential weekly event popular with women in particular from working-class neighborhoods. However, women remain in the minority when it comes to cycling (30% of cyclists are used on a daily basis) and there is still work to be done for gender equality in this area.
