Belles On Bikes information event! Thursday 1st March 2012 06/02/2012
Posted by Victoria Leiper in Edinburgh, Girls, Glasgow, Scotland, Uncategorized.add a comment
Bike Club is launching a series of leadership courses for women in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Providing female cyclists with the training required to encourage and support more women into cycling, the Belles on Bike course is perfect for anyone looking to learn something new and pass on their passion for cycling. On Thursday 1st March, Bike Club is hosting an information event in Glasgow for anyone interesting in registering for the first Glasgow based Belles on Bikes Leadership Programme. To register your interest in the course and the information event please email victoria.leiper@bikeclub.org.uk for a registration form. More detials are below. For Edinburgh based Belles, a similar event will follow – date TBC.
Glasgow Youth Cycle League – we need your help! 30/01/2012
Posted by Victoria Leiper in Asda, Glasgow.add a comment
Throughout 2012, Bike Club in partnership with Glasgow Life, Glasgow Community Safety Services and Scottish Cycling, will be hosting a series of events for young people across city. Taking place at a variety of urban mountain bike sites in and around Glasgow, the Youth Cycle League will be a fun and welcoming introduction to cycling, with activities to suit all abilities. Plans are underway at the moment, however we want to involve young people in all stages, from early planning to helping out on the day. Whether you have a flair for design or are interested in event planning in the future, we need your help! Come along to The ARC centre in Milton on Saturday to find out how you can get involved. See the poster below for more details.
Common Wheel get Training 30/01/2012
Posted by Victoria Leiper in Asda, Glasgow, Uncategorized.add a comment
Common Wheel, a charity which provides meaningful activity for people with mental illness , is due to launch their brand new programme of training for young people in April 2012. Work to redesign and refurbish their main workshop in Maryhill is underway and will allow the already efficient and productive workshop to run more bike building and maintenance courses, including their new Bike Club venture.
Young people will be refered to Common Wheel via the NHS ESTEEM service which operates across Glasgow to provide a dedicated service for people aged 16 + who are experiencing a first episode of psychosis. The team offers advice, support, treatment and various interventions.
While the workshop is getting a make over, staff and volunteers, including several long term clients who will act as peer mentors for the young people, have been working on achieving Weldtech bike maintenance accreditation. Funding from Bike Club supported long term clients achieve this qualification. The opportunity to gain a recognised bike maintenance qualification has created a real sense of achievement and has ignited a desire to work towards other training opportunities in the near future, serving an “additional purpose” and delight at “being asked to take part”.
Using the training, the volunteers have identified the key training components which make up each accreditation level in the youth bike building and training programme and has also set a framework for future clients who may wish to seek accreditation. Common Wheel commented that “this will be particularly important for the under 25s as it will contribute to the sense of hope and confidence which is so needed for recovery from mental health illness.”
Below: the workshop as it was….a haven for bike lovers!
Bike Club Leaders get set for 2012 11/01/2012
Posted by Amy Hickman in Asda, Edinburgh, Scotland.add a comment
Bike Club Leaders in Edinburgh and East Lothian have been training to get ready to start up their new Bike Club activities in 2012.
Dads Work in East Lothian is a community project working with Dads. They provide support groups, positive parenting classes, trips and outings for fathers and their children. With support from Bike Club they will introduce cycling to the families they work with giving both dads and their children confidence to become more confident and competent cyclists. In November we ran a Cycle Ride Leader course where some of the Dads volunteered to be trained as ride leaders. This has equipped them with the knowledge, skills and confidence to take out their own children and other families on local rides in the Spring.
In North Edinburgh, Royston Wardieburn Community Centre have used Bike Club support to train up sessional workers and volunteers to deliver led trips, cycle maintenance and expeditions with their young people. Two tutors from local Bike Club project MY Adventure worked with the staff and volunteers from RWCEC to train them up as Cycle Trainer Assistants and Cycle Ride Leaders. As part of the training the trainees took out a group of young people, supervised by MY Adventure staff, to give them hands on experience of taking groups out on led rides. This will allow them to deliver Bikeability Scotland Level 1 and 2 to the young people they work with and be able to plan and lead their own local rides as part of their on going programme of activities.
Finally on 9th November in Edinburgh a number of Bike Club Leaders attened Youth Scotland’s Youth Achievement Award Induction training. This will allow them to start delivering Youth Achievement Awards and Dynamic Youth Awards to the young people they work with.
Help! Challenge ride ideas welcome. 10/01/2012
Posted by Patrick Carr in Uncategorized.3 comments
Recently I’ve been plotting with the fantastic Crossroads Young Carers about their summer charity fundraiser. Jill, who manages the project is a keen walker, and is planning on walking the Hadrian’s Wall Path with a small group of young carers, over 6 days.
Keen to support them and their flourishing Bike Club, I thought I could add some spice to the occasion by riding it too, an bit like a tortoise and hare race, with me and perhaps a foolish friend or two, (Gav?) starting from Bowness on Solway on day 6, just as the walkers are leaving Heddon-on-the-Wall, a mere 15 miles from the finish at Wallsend. That’s a nice round 100 miles if you follow the National Cycle Network’s route 72, the Hadrian’s Cycleway
However, I’ve uncovered a small problem with the plan. Apparently some marathon runners who are friends of the project are also considering running the whole 84 miles in a day. WOW! 3 and half marathons in a single day! That would make my efforts on a bike look rather puny. So the only solution is to ramp it up. And that’s where I need your help. If you have any suggestions to make my ride that bit more epic and noteworthy (without killing me…) then pop them in the comments below.
Folding bikes perhaps- I crossed England on mine last summer…
Or perhaps do as my brother did when we rode the route as part of a tour one time, and attempt to ride his singlespeed along the World Heritige Site itself?
Ideas please!
CTC travels to Lisbon 06/01/2012
Posted by Amy Hickman in Edinburgh, Events.add a comment
Back in November, I joined 7 other participants from the UK on a week long trip to Lisbon, Portugal.This was part of a Youth in Action exchange project for young people led by Lisbon based environmental organisation 5elemento with the CTC acting as the UK partner orgnaisation
The aim of the trip was for 8 UK participants to team up with 8 Portuguese participants and take part in a week long project taking part in a variety of activities centred around the idea of bicycle recycling and to explore cycling in Lisbon. It was also an opportunity for 5elemento to develop a bicycle repair project within the Èstrela de Africa community in de Maiohis – a slum neighbourhood in the centre of Lisbon
The week was varied and made up of a series of site visits, workshops and social activities that covered experiences of cycling in Portugal, Lisbon and in the UK. Participants shared their own experiences from the cycling projects they are involved with plus a seminar with a cycling expert from Lisbon. During the week we visited a school in de Maihois, met with some of those working in the Èstrela de Africa community, visited the community centre the project would be based in and had a go at fixing some of the bikes (However this was mostly left to those participants who had a background in bike mechanics).
Once the bikes were back in working order we were able to go on a tour of Lisbon by bicycle. We had a few mechanicals along the way, and finished off the day by taking part in a Critical Mass Ride in the city centre. The week ended in all participants taking part in Bike Polo – some people made it look remarkably easy but I guarantee it is not something you can pick up quickly.
The trip was quite an eye opener for me and in reflection has made me realise how far we have come in the UK to make cycling more mainstream. Those working for 5elemento were inspired by our experiences of getting people on bikes in the UK and have taken this on board to develop their own projects and hopefully get more people in Lisbon cycling.
Stenhouse Primary School encourage pupils to get on their bikes 05/01/2012
Posted by Amy Hickman in Asda, Edinburgh, Scotland.add a comment
Stenhouse P.S became a Bike Club in August last year and has been running a weekly after school club for pupils. Staff and volunteers involved in the project aim to give pupils the opportunity to become confident and safe cyclists. They hope pupils will not only see cycling as an enjoyable pastime but as a healthy lifestyle choice and an environmentally friendly way to travel now and into adulthood. The school will also invite parents along on some rides to encourage cycling as a family activity.
Cycling activities include skills sessions in the playground using their obstacle course, regular led rides on local network of paths and maintenance sessions. The staff, volunteers and pupils plan routes in advance so they can see where they will be going before they leave the school grounds for example a trip to Spylaw Park – the route there and the route back. This allows everyone to get involved in planning and leading the ride.
Bike Club funding has allowed the school to train up 3 members of staff as Cycle Ride Leaders, allowing them to increase the number of pupils joining the rides. They also plan to run some family maintenance sessions for parents to learn how to do minor repairs and adjustments on bikes. Two members of staff have attended a bike maintenance course and bought tools and maintenance equipment to allow this.
In addition to the after school club they ensure all pupils have the opportunity and are encouraged to ride a bike. Stenhouse primary school has also recently become part of Sustrans I-Bike programme – helping them to actively encourage pupils who own their own bike to cycle to. As part of the P7 cycle programme they will encourage journeying by bike to high school and look at safe route choices. The school also accommodates a class for children with communication difficulties. These pupils will have the opportunity to cycle within school hours using bikes provided by the school.
In 2012 the school plans to continue increase pupils opportunities to participate in cycling activities and have planned a whole school cycle day on 15th March. You can follow the schools cycling activities here http://activetravel2stenhouse.wordpress.com/category/stenhouse-primary-school/
When 2 Bike Clubs Collide!!! 19/12/2011
Posted by andrewbikeclub in Darlington, Newcastle.add a comment
Tomorrow (Tuesday 20/12/11) sees the first joint Bike Club session between a Darlington and a Newcastle based Bike Club, with Darlington Youth Offending team (YOT) and Kids Kabin (Newcastle) staging a joint activity.
Simon Irwin, from Kids Kabin, is travelling South to Darlington to lend his bike fixing experience at the YOT’ Bike Club’s maintainance session. In return Simon is getting some of the bikes from the YOT team’s pool, that were originally unclaimed bikes donated from the Police.
The joint project came about last month, when Simon and Barry Griffiths (from Dalrington YOT) met at CTC’s Newcastle Roadshow. And once Barry had seen the fruits of Simon’s bike building skills, it was love at first trike! (Simon has constructed a mobile bike repair workshops on the frame of an old tricycle!)
The joint session is hoped to be one of many and is a really good example of how two Bikes Clubs can benefit from one another!
Skerne Park School’s Club Launches 19/12/2011
Posted by andrewbikeclub in Darlington, Uncategorized.add a comment
On a chilly Wednesday afternoon (14/12/11) I went along to Skerne Park Primary School’s Bike Club Launch, for a fun session of cycle games which got everyone warmed up quickly!
The group of 12 pupils got to take part in a number of games inspired by the National Standards ‘Bikeablity’ training, led by Assistant head Phil Raine. The group got underway with a few rounds of the ‘Slow Race’, where the winner is the last person to cross the finish line without taking their feet off the pedals. Once the rules were explained Mr Raine even got in on the act and was quite impressive.
Next up was a tricky skills test in the form of the ‘Shrinking Circle’ game. All 12 of the gang had to ride round a marked out circle, which gradually gets smaller (hence the name!) the winner is the last person who doesn’t put their feet on the ground, or goes out of the circle of course.
To finish off everyone enjoyed a game of ‘Beehives’, with pupils taking on the guises of bicycling bees, trying to be the first to reach a different coloured ‘hive’ before anyone else. The last person to get to the ‘hive’ finds themself minus a life. The winner was the last person still with one of their two lives. Along with newly gained bike handling skills, everyone had much fun and hilarity, in spite of the pre-Christmas chill.
Skerne Park are planning a series of bike game sessions and led rides around the town for their Year 5 and 6 pupils in 2012. the club have nearly got everything in place with 8 new road hybrid bikes bought and Mr Raine all set to do his Trail leader training.
Watch this space for further developments…
Saltersgate gear up to get ‘Whole School on Wheels’ 09/12/2011
Posted by Amy Hickman in Asda, Edinburgh, Scotland.add a comment
Saltersgate School in Dalkeith are gearing themselves up to get the ‘whole school on wheels’ as part of a new Bike Club project in the school. The school provides education for Primary and Secondary aged children from across Midlothian who have additional learning needs.
Earlier this year a group of pupils organised their own sponsored bike ride and raised £300. This was used to buy new parts for some of their existing bikes and trikes to fix them up and get them back on the road. Staff from the school, Mrs Higgins, Miss Young and Mr Rose, wanted ‘cycling’ to become embedded as part of educational and social opportunities for all students throughout the school.
Through support and funding from Bike Club, Saltersgate were successful in securing £2040. On top of this local ASDA Store the Jewel raised £426 in store to contribute to the project. Bike Club Officer Amy Hickman and ASDA Community Colleague Kerin Mcleod recently visited the school to present a cheque.
Bike Club funding has allowed Saltersgate to buy some second hand mountain bikes from Midlothian council and some trikes so more pupils can access cycling. The funding will also be used for staff training including maintenance and Bikeability Scotland.
This cycling project will allow access for students to play and ‘socialise on wheels’ in the playground at break and lunchtimes. Class teachers will also have opportunities to teach pupils how to ride bikes and develop their cycling skills during class time. In the long term the school will be able to offer trips along the local cycle path, have activity day cycle trips and offer bike maintenance skills for interested student
Mrs Higgins is really excited about this project and said the Bike club within Saltersgate School will support many of our fundamental aims. Supporting each student to develop their cycling, also develops important life skills. It enables access to physical activity and recreation and develops independence on wheels promotes confidence, self-esteem and opportunities.
