Strengths and limitations
nervousness
ADVERSE EVENTS, HEAT
The strong acceptability of the intervention by the participants, the relatively high adherence levels and rarity of adverse events leading to injuries underline the success of the SiFar program. Participants who had many limitations in their cycling competence at baseline benefited the most. Due to the standardized structure and a train-the-trainer approach, the intervention could easily be made available to a broad public.A further strength of the study is that the errors in the cycle course were recorded as a discrete rather than a categorical variable as in the study by Hagemeister et al. [Despite these strengths, we acknowledge some limitations. The assessment in the cycle course can only be used as a proxy for cycling competence in real life traffic behavior. However, the seven tasks of the cycle course and the SiFAr program address all basic skills required for safe cycling who can be trained on an individual level. The high proportion of single accidents among cyclists in outside built-up areas [Individuals who were unable to ride a bicycle due to insecurities could not be included in the study because, as participants had to come to the training sessions independently on their own bicycles. This seems to be the main limitation, that those individuals with presumably the greatest need and potential for improvement could not be included in the study. However, these people could have participated in the program if they had a bicycle customized to their needs, e.g. a tricycle.Furthermore, it was a challenge for the study staff to motivate the participants to go to their performance limits without disregarding their safety. Therefore, there could be a difference between the actual and the theoretically possible cycling performance. Since the measurement in the cycle course took place outdoors, various influencing factors (heat, rain, leaves) cannot be prevented completely. In addition, the test person’s physical condition on the day or other factors (e.g. nervousness or stress) influence the performance in the cycle course. Since there was also a slight improvement in the control group after the intervention period, we assume that the participants were already sensitized by the measurement in the cycle course and therefore changed certain forms of cycling behavior.