I just love my job. Being a Cycle Instructor is extremely rewarding; not just for me, but for my students too. I was reminded of this last weekend when my latest lady protegee embarked on her second lesson with me.

Let me set the scene: My wannabee cycle diva is around 30 years old and had never before straddled a bicycle before let alone ride it. So naturally, she came to me with a bag full of fears and worries but with a bundle of determination.

So, for her very first lesson, we met at a local park for a 2 hour lesson. She had a clear goal in mind; to be able to join in family bike rides with her hubby and children whilst discovering a new sense of freedom and stylish independence!

Now, the way I work is this; I don't want my fee if I can't teach a complete novice to ride in just 20 minutes! That's how confident I am that I can get an adult or child to ride a bike unaided from scratch.

So after the initial preliminaries of making sure her inherited bike was roadworthy, I set up her bike (which was a little too big for her) and removed the pedals. Off we went to our lovely grassy bank that was to be our training playground for the duration.

Fear soon turned to glee as my cycle diva experienced for the very first time the motion of the bike as I aided her balance on the freewheel down the slope. Her confidence grew and I put the pedals back on, taught her how to use her brakes, set her pedal position etc and off we set again.

After a few assisted runs, unknown to my diva, I released my support for just a few seconds remaining close by her to give her additional balance support when needed.

But do you know, I couldn't keep my running pace up with her pedaling as she whizzed off into the distance unaided with a great big whopping smile on her face. Wow! I was so proud of her.

Now the trick for me was to get her to set off unaided on the flat and that's when things started to go slightly wrong. She could just about set off unaided but stopping without falling off was becoming an issue and no matter how I demonstrated and talked her through the stopping process, the muddy ground was waiting to welcome her with open arms.

I was getting frustrated with myself until I realised that the problem was simply down to the fact that she was tiring quickly and her confidence was dropping. Perhaps I'd expected too much? Maybe I just hadn't recognised how much physical and mental energy is required from someone so initially pent up with fear an unaccustomed to exercise? What ever the reason, I learnt a valuable lesson; don't push beyond what is really achievable.

With the lesson stopped, we planned to meet the following week for one hour. I was concerned that she felt the lesson had ended on a 'low' so throughout the following week, I contacted her regularly with words of encouragement and advice.

When we met this Sunday just gone, the fear and trepidation had raised their ugly heads again but within 10 minutes, she was truly setting off unaided, riding, braking and not falling off. We did loads of other stuff too; gearing, steering, pedal cadence and what to wear to look stylish on a bike!

But most importantly of all, my diva was soaring high on a cloud of confidence and couldn't wait to get home and get out for a leisurely bike ride with her hubby and children. Job done!