Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries Partnership!

When I was a child I was always on my bike. We lived on a "modern" estate which was very soulless, but was actually great for children to grow up on. There was hardly any traffic so we could easily play tennis and football in the road, and I rode around on my bike from a very young age all on my own. I discovered pathways and short cuts, raced my friends, explored and best of all, got a shed load of exercise. These days, I am ashamed to say I cannot remember the last time I got on a bike - I seem to be fearful of traffic, in a way I never used to be. Which is a shame, and something I am at pains to work on, as I would really like the boys to become more confident cyclists. 

I was quite excited then, to learn that     Yorkshire Bank has partnered with Cycle Yorkshire to launch the Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries initiative across Yorkshire (where I live!).          Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries is a 3 year joint project (from December 2014) with Welcome to Yorkshire’s cycling initiative, Cycle Yorkshire.     The aim is to make cycling more accessible in Yorkshire by providing communities with bike libraries! What a cool idea! Very London/New York.          People are encouraged to amnesty their old bikes and drop them off at the designated donation stations, the donated bikes will make up the Yorkshire Bank Bike Libraries and be available to individuals, local enterprises and community groups to borrow, so more people, young and old, can enjoy the benefits of cycling! Genius!

So far Yorkshire's bike libraries are located at:-

o   Streetbikes CIC, Huddersfield

o   BeCycling, Bradford

o   Bradford Trident

o   Yorkshire Children’s Centre, Huddersfield

o   Get Cycling, York

o   Club Doncaster, Doncaster

o   ReVolution

o   Fearnville Centre, Leeds

However donation stations are located here and bike libraries can also be seen here.

Fore more information on the whole project, please click here.

Personally I think this is a really exciting idea and something I am behind 100%. The idea of borrowing a bike in a very similar way to borrowing a book is a wonderful idea, especially as new bikes can be really expensive. We actually bought a mountain bike for our 7 year old and it is WAY too heavy for him to ride, so we could just go along to a bike library and borrow something far more suitable. Win/Win!