Things I learnt at Sydney Cycleways Cycling In The City course.

I recently attended the Sydney Cycleways FREE Cycling In The City course.  I've just bought a road bike to ride with my husband and I live close enough to my work that it would make sense to cycle to work.  However, I have never ridden on the road, so the whole concept is quite daunting to me.

It was a great course, the content was structured well and the pace of the course made it very easy to learn.  The presenters were lovely and very accessible and the learning environment was very encouraging, comfortable and helpful.

The course went from 9am to 1:30pm and involved bike control / bike skills drills at Sydney Park and then a ride to various sites (between Erskineville and Central station) to do on-road drills.

The major points that I took away from the course.

1. See and be seen (lane positioning)

2. Be predictable (eg. don't swerve in and out of haphazard parked car area)

3. Communication (eye contact, waving, nodding, acknowledgement, signalling, lane positioning, have a dialogue with surrounding cars - be humanly different from "an obstacle")

4. Gracious cycling (route decisions, don't engage in ugliness / road rage - pull over, take a minute to compose yourself)

Other points

Unless there is an official bike lane (will have the word LANE displayed somewhere - eg. Harbour Bridge bike lane), cyclists have the option to use the road. Most of the cycleways we consider bike lanes, are not actually considered bike LANEs. 
NSW rules here - http://www.bicycleinfo.nsw.gov.au/riding_safely/nsw_road_rules.html

The door zone is not deemed a safe place to cycle, unless you are going extremely slowly - eg. up hills.  I also found a great video demonstrating door zone distance here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPA-ZcYGT94  
Having known people get doored, I was pretty paraoid, but it's even wider than *I* thought!

(Courtesy - http://blog.cycleinjury.co.uk/2012/03/cycling-tips-part-1-road-positioning.html)

Primary vs Secondary position on the road.  Primary position has the best angles for looking out for things.  However, different positions are useful for different situations.  Note that the secondary position is not the door zone, it is between potential door zone and primary position - sometimes there is no secondary position.
Example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsMqy-3jQXM&list=UUQc_RlMYwe_9NgAlxFbmtWA

Bike control - for more control at a slower speed, try braking and pedalling against the braking. Also, it is essential to be able to stop suddenly and keep your butt on the seat (it is safer).

Tip for starting out: Start with a short (eg. 5km) regular route, then branch out.

It sounds like route planning (avoiding heavy traffic) is critical in commuter cycling. Our roads are designed to funnel cars onto the larger roads, so as a cyclist, it will take a little planning to go against this automatic thinking.

I will be starting to try the roads in the upcoming weeks and have decided to record my progress.

Hopefully I won't cop too much abuse or get hurt..  I'm a bit scared.