Brief D

Background 

Grampian Inclusive Cycling Bothies runs adapted cycling sessions. We aim to increase the accessibility of cycling, making it something everyone feels they can get involved with and remove the barriers to physical activity. Our sessions are free to attend and open to anyone to come along. Many of our participants have a variety of different physical and learning disabilities.

We use adapted trikes for our sessions. These come in a many different types from semi recumbent, recumbent trikes, upright trikes and handcycles. These allow people who cannot use a two wheel bike to be able to take part in cycling.

Most of our sessions take place in traffic free environments such as athletics tracks, however in Aberdeen we use a space which has more inclines that creates challenges for some of our participants.

Need 

The price of purchasing adapted bikes is a huge barrier to people. This price is because adapted bikes are designed and made from bespoke parts. They are larger than 2 wheel bikes making them heavy and difficult to store, transport and manoeuvre. This can be challenging for us especially when we are transporting the bikes to events and in and out of containers.

We find that in our sessions where the ground is not completely flat a few of our participants sometimes struggle with using the brakes when going downhill and risk picking up too much speed. We manage this through the support of the staff and volunteers running the session, reminding participants to use the brakes and adjusting the cycling course as required to help reduce the risk of losing control of the bike. For these participants it would be great if we could allow them more independence if we were able to remotely support them with operating the brakes.

We would welcome designs which offer an automatic braking device to help those participants with less control or are lighter weight for moving around and easier to manoeuvre.

Resources

• Grampian Inclusive Cycling Bothies
• Grampian Inclusive Cycling Bothies Facebook
• Grampian Inclusive Cycling Bothies Facebook reel
• An example braking system design
• A list of bikes including some which GICB have
• Information about different types of bikes

Photos