Community come together in Birmigham to talk cycling at local Cycle Cafes

Fabio Henriques and I are 2 bike mechanics based in Birmingham. We not only love to cycle ourselves, but would love to enable others to do so. In order to do this, we are looking to set up a community cycle hub. We have both found it hard at times to cycle round the city but didn’t want to assume our experiences were true for everyone

We were lucky enough to secure funding from Central Co-op to enable us to host a series of community cycle cafés around Birmingham B30. These drop in cafés aimed to look at a hyper local area (as the majority of car journeys are 2 miles or less and we were targeting people who would be making those local journeys), and the barriers that people faced to cycling in their local area. There were many common themes running through the evenings: the already highly publicised standard of driving in Birmingham, the lack of good quality cycling infrastructure and that travelling with a bike by train is incredibly difficult. These big issues are incredibly important, and there are many campaigning organisations that are doing great work to look at this. However, as ordinary people how can we help each other? This is where some of the other issues came into play. We heard that barriers included: cycle parking or the lack of it, not knowing where to cycle and not knowing what to wear to cycle when encountering our beautiful English weather! Other issues were the lack of confidence in cycling on the road and the lack of knowledge of how to maintain bikes. These are things that we can absolutely work together on as a community. For example, setting up route planning workshops and buddying together to learn the best routes to work or local shops. Mapping out where good quality bike parking is available, collating a list of wet/cold weather cycle clothing and sharing a list of shops and cafes which allow you to take your bike in (coffee, cake and cycling go hand in hand after all)! Also, pointing people in the direction of local cycling instructors and local bike mending events such as Dr Bike where bikes are checked and minor repairs undertaken- another event that Central Co-op has funded.

Another thing that kept coming up again and again was wanting to feel part of a community. There are many amazing cycling clubs and led rides that we will be signposting, but there was appetite for a different social group. One where we could meet up and make friends to go on rides with, watch cycling based films and have related discussions- that sort of thing. In fact, it was mentioned that there used to be such a group so maybe we can resurrect that.

Although the focus of these cafés was to look at the barriers to everyday cycling and how we can mutually help tackle them, we of course talked about what we love about cycling. It’s healthy for both body and mind, it’s a cheap and quick way of getting round, it’s freeing and people have happy memories of it. And as one participant said, it leads to lots of fun and adventures. It’s seeing the city in a different way.