On Tuesday afternoon we set off from Bristol to Castle Combe circuit to participate in the Midsummer Bike Ride. A challenge was set for cyclists of all ages and interests to complete as many miles as possible in the three hours. 5,000 collective miles was the target target. £3 was charged for entry onto the circuit and monies raised went Life Cycle’s Two’s Company, ‘gives visually impaired, disabled people and people with early stage dementia opportunities to come cycling on the back of a tandem’.

I made a map of our journey to Castle Combe. We cycled there and caught the train back to Bristol from Chippenham (though it seems I did not turn off the GPS : ).

EveryTrail – Find the

The Bristol Bike Project won the Grassroots category of the 2011 Observer Ethical Awards.

Here is a video the Observer made about the project:

The Bristol Bike Project : The Observer Ethical Awards 2011 from The Bristol Bike Project on Vimeo.

I’m heading to the Women’s Night at the Bristol Bike Project. Run weekly, these sessions from 5-8pm offer women a chance to learn to fix their bikes in a women only environment. I’m looking forward to it. I recently installed a new cassette on my road bike (I added a few extra teeth to deal with bristol’s many hills) and there’s slippage between a few gears that I’d like to tinker with.

Some blurb from the BBC website:

Because it is important to be able to fix your own bike and not to have to rely on favours of male friends or the often quite expensive bike shop. The knowledge of mechanics has been historically gendered and segregated – that is, men (and boys) are encouraged to pursue technical and mechanical activities while women (and girls) are discouraged. As such, women are often seen as unable to use tools and hence not trusted to use them. Women are perfectly capable of carrying out mechanical tasks and it is very important for them to have the space to learn new skills and practice existing skills without assumptions about ability based on gender.

The Bristol Bike Project is a unique organisation that ‘provide ‘free’ bicycles to members of underprivileged and marginalised groups that would not otherwise have the opportunity to own one’. They work with Bristol Refugee Rights, Bristol Drugs Project, Second Step, The Big Issue and a range of youth groups. However the bikes are not altogether free. Participants have to earn them. I spent the afternoon at a Earn-A-Bike session whereby participants work with volunteer mechanics to fix a donated bike. The sessions last 2-4 hours and up to six teams work side by side in the fully equipped workshop.

Project members emphasise the ‘practical, hands-on engagement that functions as a bonding process between owner and bicycle’. And I saw this in action. I spent the afternoon observing, talking, holding things, asking questions, standing in the way, getting out of the way, drinking tea and eating biscuits as people fixed up bikes and rode them away.

I saw how participants chose a bike from a range of specially pre-prepared bikes. Mechanics had already spent up to two days on each one working through a highly detailed checklist to ensure the frame, bottom bracket, headset, chainset, seatpost, handlebars and other key parts were ok.

Participants then worked through the second checklist with up to two mechanics. These tasks are viewed as good skills to have to keep a bike maintained or to fix something minor when it happens. They include replacing tyre, fixing puncture, replacing brake levers and cables, indexing gears, oiling the chain and replacing brake blocks.

I noted how mechanics worked as much with participants as they did with the bike. They encouraged them to ‘see’ and ‘feel’ parts of the bike, to understand what was wrong and how it might be fixed. They talked through the problem, demonstrated how to fix it, then put the tools in participants’ hands.

They then checked to see if the problem was fixed and if needed the process was repeated. One participant, who already had some bike knowledge, told me he had learnt a lot from the experience. I did too.

I hope to spend more time at the project to understand in more depth the value they add to the local community and to individuals lives. In addition to the Earn-A-Bike sessions I’ll attend the Women’s Maintenance Sessions on Mondays.

From initial observations, conversations and just a brief glimpse at the range of local cycling events/activities it is clear that DIY/recycled bike culture flourishes in Bristol. Bikes have second and often third lives here. They are donated to projects, updated, given new futures and transformed into amazing new things.

Here are some pics* I took of an exhibition at The CREATE Centre about bike projects run by Spoke’n Chain, Life Cycle and The Bristol Bike Project.

*Apologies for the poor quality photos. It seems I have broken yet another camera. Cycling and cameras, for me, don’t go well together.

Another beautiful day in Bristol today. Cycling along the waterfront it felt like a Mediterranean city, with its bright hillside houses, marinas and boat sheds, and I felt very privileged to be doing this work.

Today I met two groups involved in different forms of cycling. Firstly, the Bristol Trails Group – a volunteer organisation of mountain bikers that helps plan, improve, and maintain local trails. I went along to the Mud Dock to hear a talk about their work as part of the Mudstock event. The Bristol Trails Group was set up in 2004, as part of a process that was semi-formalising the informal mountain biking happening near Bristol. This provided a compromise where landowners (including the Forestry Commission) could control where mountain biking happened, and mountain bikers could have some say over how trails were built.

Antony de Heveningham gave an engaging talk about the Group, and what is happening with the launch of 1SW which is putting some serious money into MTB trails. There were some particularly interesting points including:

1. Unusually, Bristol has MTB trails easily accessible from the city centre by bike.
2. The ways that MTBers judge trails as being good or not – Antony used the phrase ‘flattering your ability’ a few times, and talked about the importance of having different options for different levels of skill (and the worry that ‘all ability’ puts off experienced riders). I don’t know that much about mountain biking so all this is new and intriguing to me.
3. His critique of a gadget-focused MTB culture, where people are encouraged to lust after the latest enhancements to their bikes, but where you ride takes a back seat.
4. The inventiveness and make-do culture, alongside the need for some level of support for it (small grants and in-kind assistance from bike shops, etc.)

And, talking of mountain bikes… here’s something that you don’t see every day!

This tandem mountain bike was shown me by Alastair who helps out with Two’s Company. After attending the trails talk, I’d headed down to the Create Centre, a couple of miles along the waterside (hence the lovely trip along the river path). Two’s Company, a project run by LifeCycle UK*, gives visually impaired and disabled people opportunities to come cycling on the back of a tandem. I met Alastair and other participants outside Create, helping people try out the tandems.

I spoke with Jenny about the variety of rides the group organises, including around the Castle Combe motor circuit on Midsummer’s Eve (‘like riding on silk’, apparently!) Lizzie, who works for LifeCycle, spoke about how riding a route on a tandem is so different from riding it on a commute. And she told me about the new project run by Two’s Company which is aimed at people with early stage dementia (funded by Bristol PCT and supported by the Alzheimer’s Society). While I’m talking to them, I see a tandem pair come back from a ride. The rear rider has clearly enjoyed riding again for the first time in a while. Riding for her has brought back her memories of riding earlier in her life, and given her a new feeling of freedom and activity. The potential health impacts of this project are really interesting both in terms of enabling people to get physical activity, but also – where people have experiences of cycling as a child or younger adult – keeping them in touch with past pleasurable cycling experiences. The latter is something that has come up in our interviews more generally, but I think perhaps it may be particularly valuable for people experiencing dementia.

*LifeCycle run an exciting variety of programmes, including a specialist Brompton maintenance workshop!

I had a terrific day yesterday cycling 58.2 miles with over 20 Bristol Thursday Old Time cyclists for 7 hours. The ride featured a pretty substantial hill called ‘The Wrangle’, lunch and cider in the garden of The Hunters Lodge (which included for me a piece of cheese almost the size of my head), lots of lovely conversations with riders and a flying downhill tour of the Cheddar Gorge. Plus it was a gorgeous sunny day. I am looking forward to joining the group again in June (but will next time remember to wear sunscreen!)

And again with pics:

This looks better BIG.

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* The Bristol Thursday Old Time Cyclists have a lovely write up of the ride and more pictures here.

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Tomorrow I am going riding with the Bristol Thursday Old Time Cyclists. I am even going to be met at my door and escorted to the start of the ride which is very considerate (and much appreciated given I have been so lost today my GPS track resembles macramé). I have been told that ‘the ride will be a bit hilly with lunch in a very rustic pub in the middle of nowhere on the top of the Mendip hills. Traditional Somerset cider will be available.’ (And yes, this is my job : )