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It was a social ride, but Wendi Kallins couldn’t help falling into the role of instructor. The Safe Routes to School director for the Marin County Bicycle Coalition was accustomed to helping kids get comfortable on bikes. But this was a different audience.

“I went biking with a gaggle of my women friends, all of whom hadn’t been biking for a long time, and all were very nervous,” Kallins says. “I’m not an instructor myself, but I started telling them how to change gears and get control of their bikes and they all said, ‘Oh, this is so much better.’”

So last spring, inspired by the effect of that informal education and hoping to reach more interested women, the MCBC created a female-focused training that caters to the entire spectrum of lady cyclists. This weekend, Women on Wheels will roll out its second round of classes.

The California advocates tailored the beginners’ course on the fundamental bike skills outlined in John Ciccarelli’s widely used curriculum. With many adults having mothballed their bikes since youth, that first class filled up fast; so fast that some ladies had to be placed on a waiting list. The three-part training lived up to the excitement, too. The feedback, Kallins says, was overwhelmingly positive.

“They were really comfortable with the pace and the lack of competitiveness that often comes when you have a mixed group,” she explains. “Men tend to want to push themselves and women are more interested in getting the skill sets. Not that women don’t push themselves, but men seem to take more risks. So everyone was very comfortable and really enjoyed it. They took numbers and wanted to keep in touch to keep riding together.”

Many of those women were also ready to move beyond the ABCs of bicycling. “Some of the women in the beginning class said it was too basic for them,” Kallins says. The MCBC was ready for that; the Women on Wheels program also offers an intermediate track. The three-part course builds participants’ confidence and directly addresses some of the practical challenges of riding in Marin County.

“One of the things that was most popular was the hill climbing,” Kallin says of hte intermediate class. “Because, where we live, if you can’t climb a hill, you won’t get very far. So they learn to get up those hills — and get down.”

This weekend, MCBC is kicking off another series of Women on Wheels classes. But Kallin is already thinking about the next effort to get more ladies on bicycles. “The next level I want to do is ‘Moms on Wheels,’” she says.

“The impetus is really, with all these years of Safe Routes to School more kids are walking, but the kids who bike are the kids who come from biking families,” she explains. “Because too many moms don’t know how to bike themselves, I want to combine some elements of our Riding with Youth Class with elements of Women on Wheels, to get more moms confident about riding with their kids.”

Click here to read more about Women on Wheels.