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Cycling UK has received a donation of 59 folding bikes from the Brompton Wheels for Heroes campaign.
The cycles will be used at 12 Community Cycle Clubs (CCCs) in locations including Manchester, Liverpool, London, Bradford, Essex and Norfolk. Cycling UK supports more than 150 CCCs across the country.
“This donation of folding bicycles is especially valuable because many of these community groups suffer from both a lack of bikes and a shortage of storage space,” said Jenny Box, head of behaviour change and development in England for Cycling UK. “These Brompton cycles will allow our Community Cycle Clubs to engage with more local people, and give new cyclists the confidence to ride.”
Twelve of the Brompton bikes have gone to two community groups in the London Borough of Lambeth. One of these has been running cycling lessons for young people but has had a shortage of adult bikes. This donation will allow them to run lessons for parents and other adults once this is permitted under COVID-19 restrictions. The other group, a women’s-led initiative, will use the Bromptons to run fortnightly rides as soon as these are allowed. This club had very limited space to store regular bikes, so the fleet of folding cycles will allow more people to join.
The bicycles have come from Brompton’s Wheels for Heroes campaign, which has so far supplied hundreds of bikes to NHS staff. Surplus bicycles are now being donated to other community projects as well as NHS Trusts.
Julian Scriven, managing director at Brompton Bike Hire, added: “The Wheels for Heroes initiative actually started out with a loan offer to one of our members at St Barts Hospital Trust. Two bikes turned into ten, ten into a hundred and before we knew it, we had over 3,000 NHS key workers registered with us to borrow a bike.
“Rather than disappoint these hard workers, we went on to build over 700 bikes specifically for this initiative. These bikes were funded by charitable donations from the public and the Places to Ride fund, and partially funded by Brompton Bicycle.
“From day one we have been committed that the story shouldn’t end with COVID-19. We will be using these bikes to create a change in people’s travel habits across the nation, and we are delighted that Cycling UK is partnering with us to use some of these bikes to encourage cycling in ‘low propensity to cycle groups’ across Britain.”
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