April 10, 2024

Travel Actively Barrow have been busy again this Easter, this time with bike confidence sessions and guided rides. We have facilitated six sessions over the last week, from ‘Learn to Pedal’ for those who cannot ride a bike to ‘Improvers’ working on bike skills, gear changes and more advanced off road challenges.

Other sessions then followed the Bikeability Level 2 and Level 3 curriculum, perfect for secondary school children and adults, who are going to be riding on busy roads, either for commuting or recreation. In these sessions, the instructors from Stage 1 Cycles covered junctions, traffic lights, roundabouts and how to move safely in busy traffic. All lifesaving skills for cyclists. It is also a great step for young people moving towards learning to drive a car.

One of the biggest barriers to people feeling able to use walking, wheeling and cycling as a means of active travel, is safety. In the case of cycling, feeling confident and safe on the roads. Barrow does have major infrastructure developments on the way, with a cycle path connecting Jubilee Bridge to Earnse Bay, and for Abbey Road from Ramsden Square to Park Drive, which is great news for the town.

Therefore, Travel Actively Barrow are on a mission to work in line with these developments to ensure people from all our target audiences are given the opportunity to develop their ability on bikes, so they can use cycling as a way to get around for those shorter journeys, which is beneficial for health and well being and the environment.

In addition to using bikes and adapted bikes, we also took the opportunity this Easter to introduce our E Bike fleet. Members of the public and referrals we have received from the Social Prescribing team, were invited to ‘have a go’ in a safe space at Park Vale Sports Stadium over Walney Island. There were a variety of E Bikes on offer, including Eovolt Foldable City, Afternoon and Evening bikes, Batribike Omega and Nebula bikes, Ezego Ladies and Gents Commute, and Merida E-Big Seven. Five adults then embarked on a guided ride with Helen and Matt from Stage 1 Cycles, around Walney, where they could truly understand the potential of the bikes. The E Bikes will be loaned out as part of our new ‘E Bike Library’ initiative, to be launched soon.

On the final day, Furness Multi Cultural Forum and Youth Club benefited from a bespoke session for their participants, which involved guided cycling as described above, and a basic bike maintenance workshop, supporting those involved to be able to carry out the basic bike repairs to keep their bikes safe and road worthy.