Capital of Cycling Capital of Cycling was born in 2017 out of a coalition of organisations in Bradford who believed we could acheive more than the sum of our parts by working together. Some of us were campaigning for better conditions for cycling in the area, others were providing disability cycling activities, others were working in community settings.
Along with Bradford Disability Sports and Leisure, we gained access to a huge empty shop unit on Hall Ings in the city centre and were soon joined by Bradford Bikery, Margaret Carey Foundation and others. David Robison and Anthony Thomson became directors and registered Capital of Cycling as a standalone charity in 2018. We are now a trustee-govered organisation that employs seven staff, but still carries that ethos of collaboration and working with others.
Our current ‘Active Travel Hub’ venue is on Rawson Road, behind the Oastler Market (opposite The Bazaar) – here we have a maintenance workshop and our offices. We also run cycling lessons on traffic-free floors of the car park above. Our covered “track” is used by community organisations to offer weather proof cycling activity and for us to run cycle lessons in the dry.
We work with a range of community partners and groups in providing bikes, delivering public engagement events and training which can help improve the health and wellbeing of people in Bradford. We aim to be community led and responsive to local needs.
Current projects include gifting bikes to refugees and offering training to local youth groups and support for community groups in deprived parts of the District and exploring the links between climate and active travel in Keighley. We also are key partners in managing the Shipley Active Travel Hub.
We have access to a workshop area where we teach maintenance classes, teach skills to volunteers, do up bikes for community groups and run drop-in sessions for members of the public to fix their own bikes.
We work with other community organisations to help them develop community cycling activity. Rather than treating cycling as an elite sport, we see it as something for everyone, that has the power to change how people move around our city – for the better. We think we need to grow cycling in Bradford to improve the local environment – with better air quality and reduced emissions. We also think it can improve prospects for local businesses and communities by encouraging a more ‘present’ and convivial ways of being in public space.
