Credentials Matter: Why CAN-BIKE is Our North Star

If you were enrolling your child in swimming lessons, you’d check for Red Cross or Lifesaving Society certification. If you were taking a First Aid course, you’d ensure the instructor was from a nationally recognized organisation. Why should cycling education—where your life is literally on the line in traffic—be any different?

CAN-BIKE is a division of Cycling Canada and the only legitimate, standardized, and nationally recognized cycling education program in the country. While other programs like Hop-On (also a fantastic division of Cycling Canada) are designed to get athletes to the podium, CAN-BIKE is designed to get commuters, families, and children home safely. 

Our alliance with CAN-BIKE is at the very heart of why Alberta Bike Swap exists. We didn’t just start the swaps to move bikes; we started them to support the gold standard of legitimate cycling education in Canada. This isn’t just about learning to ride—it’s about survival, legality, and professional certification.

We don’t just support CAN-BIKE; we live it. Our co-founder, Chris, is one of only four CAN-BIKE instructors in all of Alberta—and he is the only Master Instructor. When we talk about safe cycling, we aren’t sharing opinions; we are delivering a rigorous, national curriculum based on international groundwork and a touch of maple syrup.

Alberta Bike Swap was founded to provide a safe place to buy and sell bikes and it was only natural to include legitimate, safe cycling education. Every bike we process through our proprietary copyrighted Bicycle Swap Software helps fund a system where:

• Instructors are rigorously educated: They undergo intense training with 2 sets of exams.
• Legal riding is key: Our instructors know bikes and the Provincial Traffic Safety Act.
• Standards are national: There is no making it up as we go. It is a standardised package.
• Personal safety is built in: Instructors are police checked and Safe Sport trained.

Who is teaching your children? Who is teaching you? If they claim to be a cycling educator or some other catchy nickname, ask for their credentials. If they aren’t CAN-BIKE certified, they aren’t teaching the Canadian national standard. At Alberta Bike Swap, we believe your life is worth the professional difference. 

Want to learn how to ride confidently with a legitimate cycling educator?  Please see our website for our 2026 course schedule designed to build the instructor ranks in Alberta.