Cycling UK Forum

We are in the process of setting up a new Cycle for Health project to try and get more people cycling in our town. At present we are intending to run 3 short courses to re-familiarise people with riding a bike (2 evenings for each course with Bikeability trainers) and run some led bike rides for 'beginners'. I would very much appreciate any advice from people who have been involved in similar projects (either what went wrong or what went right) and any ideas to get people more involved. Some of the things we are thinking about are inviting parents to come along to the courses with there (over 9) children and do it together, setting up a 'club' for those who've completed the training, running a challenge ride at the end of summer that the led rides lead up to. We have some funding but any ideas on that would be good too.

Thanks.

No help unfortunately but please keep us all posted about how you get on.

Just about to start an occupational health job in the local hospital and one of my proprosals is along the lines of getting more staff cycling, especially in light of the fact that it has just started offering the Bike to Work scheme to employees. Whilst I couldn't do this on day one, I would be very interested in your experiences and any tips that may help get a pro-cycling scheme going.

You may need some sort of public liability insurance.

The biggest cost will be your time. Other than that your overheads will be pretty minimal.

I'm sure there's some funding available somewhere for this eg:

http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/

Your project will improve the health of people, so you have a good case for getting funds that would pay for advertising, safety gear (high vis and lights) and even some bikes to loan.

Have a look at the CTC's Cycle Champions Projects:
http://www.travelactively.org.uk/partners/show/ctc

or Sustrans' Active Travel projects:
http://www.travelactively.org.uk/partners/show/sustrans

Just an update on our Cycling for Health Prject.

We have now held the first course and led ride. It all went well though we could have done with a few more participants ingnoring the weather forecast! To find out more about what we are up to check out this link: http://www.staffordbc.gov.uk/live/welcome.asp?id=6367

We even managed to get some of the local traffic wardens to attend as they may start to use bikes. Unfortunatly a local resident saw several of them cycling the wrong way along a bit of road as they went to a photo call for the course and reported them to the press! Atleast it made sure we got newspaper coverage.

Our next course starts on 2 June wit a led ride on 14 June from Sainsbury's in Stafford if anyone would like to come along.

Great scheme - my local council (Tameside) seems in the dark ages in comparison.