Cycling Merit Badge

Requirement 6 is the badge, and it is a choice

Requirements 1 to 5 are the same for everybody: hazards and first aid, the laws where you live, clothing and helmet, a bicycle you have cleaned and adjusted and presented for inspection, and basic handling skills.

Then requirement 6 asks for all of one option, and the two options are genuinely different pieces of work.

Option A, Road Biking. A road safety test taken with your counselor: left turns in light and heavy traffic, right turns, a right-turn-only lane when you are going straight on, curbside riding and a row of parked cars, and railroad tracks. Then two rides of 10 miles, two of 15 and two of 25: a hundred miles across six rides, avoiding main highways, each written up. Then a 50-mile day inside eight hours.

Option B: Trail or Mixed Surface Biking. Mountain bike handling skills, then a trail safety test covering etiquette, obstacles, and rocks, gravel and roots. Then two rides of 2 miles, two of 5 and two of 8 on trails your counselor has approved, each written up. Then a 22-mile trail trip in one day.

Option B may be done on a mountain bike or another properly equipped manually-powered cycle: a gravel bike, a tandem, a hand-powered bike, a recumbent, an adult tricycle or an adaptive cycle. On a tandem the Scout must actively power it alongside the other rider.

Choose before you start riding, not after

A hundred miles and thirty miles are not interchangeable, and neither are the two safety tests. Answer the question at the top of this page and the plan drops the option you are not doing.

The buddy system covers all of requirement 6

Every ride in both options is done under the buddy system. That is stated at the head of requirement 6 and applies to the whole of it, not just to the long days.

Cycling, Swimming or Hiking. You need one of the three

The Eagle Scout rank requires one of Swimming, Hiking or Cycling. Which one is a decision about you rather than about this page, so there is no question here pretending to make it. If you have already earned Swimming or Hiking, you do not need this badge for Eagle.

What this page is

The Cycling merit badge, laid out so the fork is visible before you ride into it. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year.