Free cycling scheme launches for people with disabilities

Photo: Mark Harvey/Cycling UK

Participants try out the adapted cycles in Hyde Park, Tameside, as the Cycling UK scheme launches

A new free bike loan scheme has been launched in Greater Manchester for people with long-term health conditions and disabilities to get into cycling.

The programme – called the Inclusive Cycling Experience – is run by Cycling UK and funded by the Motability Foundation. It has a variety of bespoke and customised bicycles, tricycles, e-cycles, recumbent cycles, and tandems.

They’ve all been designed to overcome many of the problems that prevent people with disabilities, like visual impairments, from using a standard upright two-wheel bicycle. Each loan comes with ‘confidence-building taster sessions’.

“With the right support and the right cycle, almost anyone can benefit from cycling,” said Cycling UK’s deputy director of behaviour change Jenny Box on announcing the programme, which started on 17 April. “The Inclusive Cycling Experience will make congestion-busting, healthy and energising travel accessible to everyone.”

“We know that active travel, such as cycling, can benefit wellbeing for disabled people, by increasing mobility and reducing social isolation,” added Lisa Jones, director of charitable operations at the Motability Foundation. “Awarding grants to important organisations like these helps us to make an immediate difference to the transport needs of disabled people.”

Each loan can last ‘from one day to one month’ and there ‘is no limit on how many times you can come back to try out’ the bikes, subject to demand.

For more information and to book a loan, go to the Cycling UK web site.

Ethan Davies, Local Democracy Reporter