Walk & Cycle Bristol

Three quarters of people do not feel safe to cycle on our roads...we need to do more and quickly, with buses being cut and the need to drive less/clean air zone approaching

Three-quarters of people do not feel safe cycling in Bristol Do you feel safe cycling in our city?

📣 One week to go!

Please give us your thoughts on how we can improve Concorde Way at Lockleaze to make it safer for cycling and walking by 4 September.

Have your say: https://orlo.uk/OgoCR

Sad, but until we can tackle people's willingness to vandalise, these kind of schemes are screwed

🚴Big Issue Bikes to stop hiring bikes due to relentless vandalism😥: "It is with sincere regret that we are writing to let you know about a significant change to our current rental e-bike service in Bristol.

Since we launched the service six months ago, we have experienced extensive and relentless levels of vandalism to our e-bikes. We have taken many measures to try to overcome this issue, including making changes to the design of the e-bikes and trying to work with the local authorities, the police and our subscriber community.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the vandalism has not reduced. Having begun with a fleet of over 400, we currently have around 200 e-bikes on the street and approximately 10% of these are damaged every day. In practice, this means that our entire fleet is vandalised every two weeks. We have more e-bikes destroyed in Bristol in one week than in all our facilities combined anywhere else in the world.

This means that we are left with no choice at this time but to pause the current open, public rental e-bike service. This will take effect from this coming weekend (20/21 August).

This is not a decision we have made lightly, and it is disappointing that the actions of a minority of people have put us in this position. Big Issue eBikes was set up as a not-for-profit partnership between Norwegian micro mobility experts ShareBike and the Big Issue to deliver ‘biking for good’ in Bristol – providing sustainable and affordable electric cycling in the city whilst creating job opportunities and training for long-term unemployed people. Bristol was chosen as the first city in the UK to offer the service because of its green credentials and aspirations.

As one of our current customers, we would like to thank you for your support and loyalty and apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment that this decision may cause.

Please be reassured that if you have a current subscription when the service is paused, you do not need to take any action. All subscribers will be automatically refunded for the remaining time on their subscription. Our customer care centre will remain open, and can still be called or mailed.

We are planning to provide an alternative service in Bristol in the short term, offering businesses long-term rental of our electric bikes. This means that anyone signing up will get exclusive use of a small e-bike fleet, with BigIssue eBikes providing the maintenance and repairs. If you are interested in finding out more about this new service, please email us ([email protected]) to register your interest and we will contact you once the service is up and running. You can also look out for updates on our website www.bigissue.bike and on our app.

We sincerely hope that this is a temporary decision and that, with the support of the police and local authorities to tackle the issues we have encountered, we are able to resume and increase the open, public rental service in Bristol.
With eBike love,
The BigIssue eBike team

Two-thirds of UK adults feel that it is too dangerous to cycle on the roads, according to research by the Department for Transport. 🚲 It doesn't have to be this way. We need to invest in safe, accessible cycling infrastructure so that more people can choose active travel for their everyday journeys.

It's obvious we need to get serious about driving less, with climate change threatening lives, food security and creating health damaging pollution. The record temperatures and fires (in the UK too) are an alarm bell.

I hope we can improve the alternative travel options to help people choose to use travel more by walking, buses, rail and cycling.

We need investment in these and a fair amount of reallocation of space for these modes. With so many wanting to cycle for instance, but finding the roads are unsafe and congested with too few bike lanes.

Expensive unreliable buses/rail seem to be baked in by profiteering private companies and nationalisation of transport with more government/council control would actually give us better services.

Expensive road building needs to be vastly reduced/stopped and we need to see acceleration in investment in Liveable Neighborhoods, safe space for walking and cycling, bus prioritisation and new rail stations and services.

The clean air zone is coming but this will only prevent a small % of driving in the city. More needs doing. I know it's inconvenient, and some of us do enjoy driving, but it's clear we need to start using the more sustainable alternatives fast!!

It's a great time to try cycling with the council offering free bike loans and lessons, maps and advice. Good gears and event ebikes can make the hills feel insignificant. Great fun and keeps you fit. Walking is amazing for us too.

We really need to get ahead of the game with such scary images from Europe and people now dying attributed to climate change caused Heatwaves and fires

🥳More FREE adult cycle sessions announced! 🚴Bike St George is a new project in BS5 helping more people to cycle more often. For dates see https://www.bikebristol.com/free-adult-cycle-sessions. The sessions are suitable for a range of abilities, whether you're completely new to riding a bike, returning after a long break, or wanting some tips for the road. Several different types of sessions will be run that include:

🚴Learn to Ride
🚴Cycle Confidence
🚴Cycle Skills
🚴Leisure Rides
🚴Maintenance courses

We're delivering this in partnership with St George Community Centre with funding from Travel West (Bristol City Council).