Adult Cycling Education around the state, as of Sept 2017
If you plan to use your recumbent on the public roadway then cyclist education is worth the time. There is a lot of non-intuitive knowledge about what works getting the space you need and keep you from doing things that confuse other drivers. Modern Bike Ed isn’t about telling you how to balance, it is about how to assert yourself safely and influence the flow of traffic around you.
A full course has three components… a classroom discussion section where you cover the principles, a parking lot section where you practice handling drills, and an on-road section where you apply what you learned in the real world. The last part is important, as the stresses of being around motor traffic can cause novice cyclists to panic enough to not apply the principles they’ve learn and go back to more erratic behavior.
It can be frustrating looking for classes because they might be offered but often none are scheduled. The truth is that it is not easy to get people to give up the time necessary to cover all the material, so often times classes don’t make, or they have so few students that the instructors make nothing for their time. It is easier to find classroom only classes, which is OK but lacks the application of the principles under real-traffic stress. Easiest to find are online classes, which you don’t need to schedule. This can be pretty sophisticated, but you are still talking to a robot.
In Austin, see https://bikeaustin.org/learn/classes/
Bike education is a big part of Bike Austin. Some of their volunteers have worked on the national level to develop the current standard curriculum.
In Houston,
Bike Houston offers a beginners’ skills class for adults who don’t know how to ride. They don’t have a permanent page for the class, but it is all over their calendar, so just see that: https://bikehouston.org/calendar/#!calendar
If you received a traffic citation on your bike in Houston, Bike Houston, the municipal court, and the Center for Cycling Education put together an online class for ticket dismissal: https://thecce.org/tx-houston/
In the Dallas — Fort Worth urban megapolis,
BikeDFW offers a wide array of classes, but they are disturbingly coy about when they go on. See their course schedule at http://www.bikedfw.org/bike-education-courses.html. You can contact BikeDFW from that page and get the straight dope
Cycling Savvy is a national group focused on cycling education, with a growing network of teachers across the country. They have an emphasis on empowerment and on riding comfortably and safety in all conditions. They are worth investigating, but they are currently kinda slow in getting classes up to speed in Texas. They have an instructor in Dallas and are working on one in Houston. http://cyclingsavvy.org/category/south-central-region/dallas/
In San Antonio,
The San Antonio Metropolitan Planning Organization offers a one-hour classroom only bike safety seminar: http://www.alamoareampo.org/streetskills/
Online, in Cyberspace, and in Marfa,
The Center For Cycling Education is a US/Canadian company that used to be based in Austin. They developed an online course that you can take at any time. https://thecce.org/