There are adult cycling classes out there, with instructors who have (I am told, I learnt as a kid so I've never taken one) some pretty well-polished programs f

There are adult cycling classes out there, with instructors who have (I am told, I learnt as a kid so I've never taken one) some pretty well-polished programs for getting folks from "never sat on a bike" to "reasonably stable and aware of the rules of the road, both official and unspoken". Once you start cycling around town regularly, you build a new layer on your city map: what's the shade like on this street? how bad are the potholes on this back street? how dense is the car traffic? can I find effective detours that trade off a few minutes for not having to cross six lanes of traffic coming straight off the end of a highway? Cycling's pretty useless if you live in a suburban sprawl though. Great for an actual city.