'Tis the Season to be Cycling

An early summer round-up of things going on:

Bike to School Week is just drawing to a close, but if you missed it, you needn't miss out on doing something anyway.  Sustrans have lots of useful resources on their website to encourage cycling to school: see

www.sustrans.org.uk/change-your-travel/children-and-families/schools/bike-school-week?dm_i=6EB%2C1JULN%2C1D4965%2C5B7AO%2C1

School Bike Sales - Spokes factsheet on how to organise one available

Second-hand bike sales are very useful in encouraging people to start cycling by making it easier to get an affordable bike, especially first bikes for children and replacements for out-grown bikes.  They can also be a good way to fundraise and are a popular social event for schools, youth groups, scouts/guides, church groups etc. 

Worth thinking about for the autumn for schools or groups you are involved with? - plan now to get everything lined up over the summer.

www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/How-to-Run-a-Bike-Sale-v3.pdf
[pdf 1.1MB]  Downloadable only – not available printed.
Printed factsheets on cycling with children are also available from Spokes - How to be a Cycling Family, and How to get Your Child Cycling.  [These can be downloaded too - see www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress/documents/advice/commuting-with-kids/]   
 
* If you could use any copies at events (School Sports Days, summer fairs etc) or linked to bike training sessions, contact WeansOnWheels or spokes@spokes.org.uk *

Forthcoming Cycling Events

 Join in the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling!  15 - 23 June 2013 all around Edinburgh
Full programme details at www.edfoc.org.uk
Twitter: @edfoc
Facebook: EdinburghFestivalofCycling


Many many events; just a few are listed below.

- Sat 15th June - Edinburgh to St Andrews Cycle RideNow in its 33rd year, this is a friends and family sponsored event for LEPRA, following a 68 mile route from Edinburgh to St Andrews through scenic Fife. It is well signposted with refreshment stops, bus and van transport back to Edinburgh.
All sponsorship to LEPRA Changing the lives of people affected by disease, poverty and prejudice.
You can book online or register on the day. Entry £10 or £5 concession.
Bus returning you and bike to Edinburgh: £14 – Please book your place on the bus at same time you register. Starts from Inverleith Park at 08:45.

www.leprahealthinaction.org

Good luck to everyone doing it!

Wed 19th June - Spokes Bike Breakfast Edinburgh City Chambers (Royal Mile) 7.45-9.45.

Free breakfast for you and oil for your bike; Edinburgh Bike Coop, police security marking, free Spokes maps for the first 20 to arrive (after 7.45); stalls, leaflets; speakers 8.45am - Cllr Jim Orr, Alison Johnstone MSP (co-convenor Cross Party Group on Cycling)

Sat 22 June  - "Heels on Wheels" ladies day of cycling 
On the Meadows from 11:00 – 15:00; aims to be an inspiring, inclusive and educational FREE event.
Sarah Boyack and Alison Johnstone MSP's will be speaking to open the event at 12pm, as well as Juliana Buhring - the fastest women to cycle the globe.
Stalls, info, cycle-chic market stalls, representatives from Cycling clubs (many cycling clubs are actively trying to encourage women to join).  Holly, bike mechanic from the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative offering free mechanical advice; Chocolate Tree with their cargo trike selling ice cream and chocolate; bike smoothie maker; Cycling instructors; coffee, cake and ice cream… and lots of fun for everyone

More info at http://www.edfoc.org.uk/events/heels-on-wheels/
Extra helpers (or stalls) still very welcome - contact Tracy Griffin via the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling website

Edinburgh Event - Innertube Map Postcode Challenge - Sunday 28 April 2013

Join the Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust and the Edinburgh Bike Station on Sunday 28 April for a treasure hunt on wheels (walkers and runners also welcome!) on the North Edinburgh city cycleways. 

This is a free, fun, family event to get you exploring the off-road path network and explore the green spaces you didn't know existed. Just grab a route card and check off the stands along the way, then – if you get them all – you can enter the prize draw.

Turn up on your bike or on foot, get your route card and all you have to do is to check in at all ten stands dotted around the route if you're cycling, or five if you're on foot. Gather stamps at all the stands, then finish off at Five Ways Junction for the chance to enter the prize draw.

Everyone welcome – come by yourself, as a team or a family.

Download a route card or find out more at the Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust website

• Telephone: 0131 445 4025
• info@elgt.org.uk
• www.elgt.org.uk

Let's Scoot to School! Resources for Your School to Encourage Active Travel

Sustrans have some great stuff to help parents and teachers encourage walking, cycling and scooting to school:

1. A recent initiative that might be of interest, perhaps for Eco-Club or wider group activities, is the Big Street Survey - in essence mini-travel-planning for pupils. 

It's a resource enabling pupils to investigate the area around their school and create a manifesto on how to make their streets safer and greener. Working both inside and outside the classroom, it is a two-hour curriculum activity where pupils explore what they like and dislike about their neighbourhood, before using their manifesto to lobby decision-makers and elected representatives at national and local level to make their changes happen.

Designed by a Sustrans schools officer and qualified Geography teacher, alongside other Sustrans education officers, it meets numerous curriculum objectives, with various cross-curriculum opportunities - there are lesson plans for each of the devolved nations. All the resources are free and available to download. It is targeted at year 6 pupils but is also suitable for year 5 and potentially year 7.

More details at www.sustrans.org.uk/freerangekids/get-involved/the-big-street-survey

2. Scooting is a great way to travel - faster than walking, lots of fun, and for many families easier than sorting out and storing bikes.

Again, Sustrans has some really useful stuff to help promote scooting for travel to school (and elsewhere!) with a online info on scooting to school and scooter parking:

See:
www.sustrans.org.uk/whatwe-do/safe-routes-to-schools/resources/infosheets

www.sustrans.org.uk/assets/files/free%20range%20kids/families/frk_ready_steady_scoot.pdf

Get Ready for Spring - Emerging from Hibernation

Now that the days are getting longer, and, hopefully milder, things are starting to happen again. There are various events now in the calendar - see below for some dates for you and your families: all events open to all.

- Saturday 16 March: Spokes stall at Edinburgh Farmers Market, 9.30-1.30, Castle Terrace.  Get your cycling maps for Edinburgh and the Lothians, and pick up a limited-edition Spokes-map buff as well as general info, factsheets, chat etc.

- Monday 8 April: Spokes public meeting, 6.45 (coffee and stall for maps, info etc) for 7.30pm.  Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh
Presentations and discussion on The Future of Local Transport. Main speaker Prof Iain Docherty, with special input on cycling from Jim Eadie MSP [Cross-Party cycling group] and Cllr Jim Orr [Edinburgh cycling supremo].  More info at on the Spokes website.

- Sunday 28 April - Innertube Postcode Challenge: a fun family day on North
Edinburgh path network. See www.elgt.org.uk for details.

- Sunday the 19th of May – Pedal on Parliament mass ride, 3pm from the Meadows along on an entirely traffic-free route down to Parliament.More details at pedalonparliament.org/news/

- Saturday 22 June: the first ever Edinburgh "Heels on Wheels" event, part of the Edinburgh Festival of Cycling! Meadows from 11am – 3pm.  An inclusive and educational event including activitiessuch as:

- Cycling stalls for info, maps etc; market stalls with ladies cycling gear.
- Representatives from Cycling clubs – many cycling clubs are actively trying to encourage women to join. A good opportunity for clubs to chat with interested women.
-   Mini-Cyclocross demonstration tbc

-Cake and coffee, Chocolate Tree with their cargo bike.
- ‘Best dressed’ competition. Categories include: best dressed bike, best most fashionable coordination of bike and rider, the ‘how does she do that?’ award (for most unlikely cycling outfit).

- Cycling instructors – teaching a novice to cycle

The organisers are looking for potential stallholders, as well as volunteer stewards to help run the day. Please do get in contact if you can help out. Contact www.edfoc.org.uk. 

Spring is on the Way - Get Ready!

With the winter cold and darkness, Weans on Wheels has been in hibernation for the past wee while, so a very belated 'Happy New Year' to everyone.  May 2013 bring you and yours many happy miles of cycling!

Now daylight is returning, cycle-commuting to school is much more feasible again as we can get home before darkness. So, decent gloves and thick socks at the ready for tomorrow.  A buff round the neck and ears helps with keeping warm too. [If you haven't already seen them, check out the Spokes ones for a cycling map you can wear! Contact Spokes to purchase.]  And don't forget bike cleaning kit and oil: the salt on the roads can turn chains bright orange with rust pretty quickly, so clean them off after use - and check bikes that haven't been used in a while to make sure they're ready to go. 

Yes: definitely time to get properly back into cycling now.  Advance notice of some diary dates for later this year:

(1) The Sustrans Big Pedal 2013 - a massive cycle- and scoot- to school event, running between 28 Feb - 30 March. See http://bigpedal.org.uk/ for more details.  Could your school take part??  Superhero fundraising day to get things started on 28 Feb!

(2) the campaign group Pedal on Parliament (www.cycling-edinburgh.org.uk) are holding a second mass-cycling event in Edinburgh on Saturday 18 May - a repeat of last year's highly successful family-friendly event, in which 3,000 cyclists gathered to demonstrate to politicians the scale of demand for safer roads and better facilities. The ride will start at the Meadows and will end at Holyrood.

(3) an Edinburgh Festival of Cycling is planned for 15-23 June, which is National Bike Week,  For more information see http://edfoc.wordpress.com/ .

In the meantime, Weans on Wheels is aiming to develop the younger wean's road sense, with a view to more independent cycling this summer, and get the older wean's stamina back up after a bit of a break.  The odd half hour or so here and there practising on quiet roads as well as local trips by bike will hopefully pay off come spring weather for long rides.

And for parents: if you're looking for social cycling and ideas for routes, there are other opportunities to get your legs moving again.  The Cycling-Edinburgh website - http://www.cycling-edinburgh.org.uk/ - provides an up-to-date listing of all organised cycle rides in or near the Scottish capital. These rides are run by local cycling clubs and groups, and are mostly free of charge and open to all.

Two points to note if you're interested in taking children out with you on these rides:
1. EasyCycle will now accept children of any age on their rides (previously, they had a minimum age of 16). Obviously, children would have to be accompanied by a responsible adult. The next EasyCycle ride is on Sat 23 February, and they will be once a month thereafter.

2. The 'Edinburgh 20-Milers' group has said that tag-alongs and child seats would be fine on most of their rides. They occasionally use rough paths where there might be some difficulties, but these shouldn't be insurmountable. Rides take place on the second Saturday of the month, throughout the year.

For further details on rides see www.cycling-edinburgh.org.uk.

Marvellous Midlothian - the Dalkeith-Penicuik cycle route

WeansonWheels is thinking the geese (some of which we saw overhead today) are onto a good thing with their autumnal migration to the balmy south.  Midlothian was as far as we got, but it offered up another highly enjoyable route for family cycling with an almost entirely off-road cycle path between Dalkeith and Penicuik.  This follows the old railway, and gave us a ride of around 20 miles overall (out and back).

Starting from the centre of Dalkeith, head west along the High St, past a church and then the War Memorial, take a right hand turn into a lane and basically just follow the blue cycle route signs to Penicuik.  [Get hold of a Spokes Midlothian map for full details of junctions etc.]  This takes you down to Hardengreen (big Tesco's visible), round behind Bonnyrigg, then off to skirt past Rosewell.  Cross the main road with care as cars are fast (though not too frequent on a Sunday at least), and pick up the cycle route again just by the car park.  This proved a handy place for a family puncture-repair lesson as Child 1's rear tyre had gone flat.  Nice views to the Pentlands, walls to lean bikes against, and some random steps to occupy Child 2.

Head on westwards and you then approach Roslin with views to the Chapel and the country park.  The route so far has a gentle upwards incline and a good surface (watch out for horse droppings though!).  From around here there is a welcome descent (though rougher surface; still fine for novices and tag-alongs etc) for quite a way down.  The path then follows the river and rises up again to come out at houses on the south west side of Penicuik.  We nipped up to the High St and found a welcome snack in the Peni Deli cafe just round the corner on the right.  9 miles out; we returned the same way to Dalkeith (views to the sea) but interested to hear if anyone makes a nice circuit based on this path (ideally <30 miles and not too hilly).

A lovely sunny morning and nice autumn colours along the way; it's a pleasant mix of trees and views to the hills.  Not the warmest of days but the kids were fine with thermals, decent socks and decent gloves - seems that if extremities are looked after, the rest looks after itself.  Mudguards come in handy at this time of year - worth investing in!  Child 2 on the tag-along still got a bit splattered (well-used to it now, luckily), given some puddles from the rain yesterday.  If anyone knows of a decent crud-catcher for tag-alongs, please write in!

Any more Midlothian suggestions for family groups?

Two quick websites to pass on:

(a)  www.cycling-edinburgh.org.uk looks like a good source of ideas [haven't had time to look through all the rides there]

(b) http://www.cyclescottishborders.com/borderloop4/ might be of interest to those up for longer rides - please send in any reviews.

Happy autumn cycling!

Not Just for Summer Holidays! Developing Skills and an Autumn trip on the Pencaitland Railway Path

Autumn is a great season to keep up cycling momentum developed over the summer, perhaps whilst doing the odd bit of cycling on holiday or just around and about home while the kids were off school.  It's also a great time to get into new routines as everyone settles back into term-time, and perhaps are able to discover how much time can be saved each day through using bikes - going from A to B to C to D without having to worry about parking, and covering the distance twice as fast as walking.

Kids soon warm up pedalling and often a bike ride at the weekend can be just as if not even more enjoyable than a walk as the days get colder - just make sure everyone has warm gloves and socks and away you go.

It's always nice to cycle on off-road cycle paths, but at some point kids need to learn road-sense too.  Obviously this should start on the cycle paths, teaching young cyclists about lane discipline, speed control etc and consideration for their own and other people's safety.  This means being aware of other cyclists on the path, whether coming from behind and wishing to overtake, or from the opposite direction.  Cycling on the left on cycle paths as a general rule can help avoid tangles and worse - as can using bells when wanting to go past other path users (adult cyclists too: it's amazing how many adult cyclists try and squeeze past children who may well not be aware of them, or undertake fast on the left-hand side).  Teaching your children the basics in a quiet environment - can give them a good start for cycling on roads and in traffic.  One particularl useful cycling skill is being able to look over their right shoulder and checking what's behind before moving out to go round pedestrians or an obstacle.  It's also well worth helping your kids to be aware of the different surfaces they're cycling on and to look out for hazards such as glass, potholes and loose gravel that may cause skidding (not to mention the inevitable dog mess in some areas).

Weans on Wheels took the chance offered by the Edinburgh September holiday last week to re-visit routes in Mid- and East-Lothian, starting from Dalkeith (just by the entrance to the Country Park) and heading out along the off-road Pencaitland Railway Path to West Saltoun, then back the same way but with a loop across to Whitecraig (via the Sustrans NCN route 1 section), then back through Dalkeith Country Path stopping for lunch in the tea room there.  Around 20 miles all in, but generally flat, and we were sheltered from the blustery wind by the trees along the old railway line.  Lovely views out over East Lothian to the Bass Rock and North Berwick Law, as well as combine harvesters and the enormous Pencaitland grain silos closer by.  The path also has quite a few boards along the way explaining the mining history of the area, as well as lots of brambles for foraging and snacking on!  A nice outing for a morning or an afternoon, with lots of scope for extension or shortening depending on needs and wants.  The Spokes East Lothian map shows everything clearly, though you can also find it on the Ordnance Survey map.  [More info on the Routes page too.]  There are various points at which you can join or leave the railway path as part of other loops using the local roads.

Any route suggestions to share would be very welcome - pleas send them in!