How are you connected to Life Cycle?
I'm the cycle training and Take a Stand co-ordinator.
What's your earliest cycling memory?
Following a group of older children quite far from home on my tricycle with the burgundy seat, then my dad roaring up in the car and throwing the trike in the boot and me into the back seat - boy was I in trouble!
What was your first bike?
James Richardson is the lead mechanic at our Bike Back project
How are you connected to Life Cycle?
I am Bike Back's lead mechanic.
What's your earliest cycling memory?
I can't remember!
What was your first bike?
A Raleigh Chopper
What would your dream bike be?
My bike! I always dream about it.
Jacqui Wilcox is our Cycle Training Manager, she is also a cycle instructor and leads rides for our Bike Minded project. 
How are you connected to Life Cycle?
Heather Pugh is our Inclusive Cycling Manager and co-ordinates our Bike Minded project.
How are you connected to Life Cycle?
I've worked for Life Cycle for - coming up to four years - on our inclusive cycling projects.
What's your earliest cycling memory?
Robin Lapworth co-ordinates Life Cycle's "Two's Company" project, which offers joyful, liberating days out tandem cycling for the blind or visually impaired. He also works as a cycle instructor.
How are yo
u connected to Life Cycle?
I was a volunteer front rider for Two's Company for three years before getting the job of organising it!
Gathering data can be time consuming and boring, so often staff don’t set about the task of monitoring progress with much relish. However, in our increasingly evidenced-based world, each year Life Cycle goes to great efforts to prove that we are having a positive impact on the community.
Over the last 18 months I have been attending the Green Capital Partnership Sustainable Transport Action Group or STAG for short. One of the key focusses of STAG over the period has been the development of the Good Transport Plan. The idea originally came from the Bristol Food Network who pioneered the good food plan, to bring together disparate voices in the City to agree a shared vision on food issues.
Cycling in Bristol is on the increase, and one thing I’ve become aware of recently is the number of parents cycling to school with their primary aged children. I’ve been doing the school run since 2004 and in that time have noticed a real rise in the number of children cycling to school – in my area of North Bristol at any rate. My school route takes me across several catchment areas, so we not only see children on their way to our school, but to three, if not four others.
Two’s Company is in a sense Life Cycle’s flagship project. We started it on a wing and a prayer back in 2006, and we really didn’t know if it would take off or not. Eight years later it is going strong and supports adults and children who are blind or visually impaired to experience cycling on the back of a tandem. We run 25 rides a year giving people who often find it very hard to exercise or get out into the open, a really enjoyable day out cycling. The project is one way that Life Cycle achieves its mission of transforming lives through cycling.
Growing levels of obesity amongst the population, including children, are well documented. The cause of this epidemic is complex and multi-faceted – but is linked to lifestyle changes over the last 50 years. Amongst the changes is the fall in the amount of exercise we and our children take. The current recommendation is that 5 -18 years take at least 60 minutes of “moderate” to “vigorous” physical activity each day. Yet less than one third of children achieve this.*
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