Help Bike for Good survive the winter!

Aim: Please help Bike for Good survive the winter! Donate any amount and GCC will match it. E.g £10 turns into £20.

About Us

Bike For Good is a cycling charity based in Glasgow using bikes to do good actions. Our mission is to enable people to ride a bike.

Founded in 2010, Bike For Good sell and service refurbished bikes, teach cycle mechanic skills, provide cycle training, and deliver community programmes, all to change lives for the better through cycling. 

We have two cycling community hubs around Glasgow and welcome any new or existing cyclists to engage with us.

Our team comprises cycling enthusiasts with 85 volunteers and 40 employees.

We aim to foster an environment where cycling all year round is the norm, not the exception. We seek to address the imbalance in the cycling community and broader industry and create a healthier and more environmentally friendly Glasgow.

Unfortunately, we are facing the most challenging period since our inception 12 years ago!!

We need to raise £15 000 by the end of January to keep us going through the winter and deliver our current services in 2023!

We need your help now!

What went wrong:

• Utilities have increased by 44% - our work is manual and on the ground, and keeping two massive warehouses heated in the winter is affecting us.
• Brexit has affected our supply chain - whether for bicycle reuse or repairs. New research has found that bike retailers in the UK are, at a ratio of 12 to 1, selling less versus more products into Europe from the UK year-on-year [Consequences of Brexit]
• Lower Sales in 2022 - Total cycle market volume and value were down by 28% and 26%, respectively, in the first half of 2022 compared with the first half of 2021 [Cycle shops and recession]
• A high Inflation rate increases all other costs.

Like many other UK businesses, our cash flow is plummeting, and our reserves are at an all-time low. More companies are now seeing their cash flow decreasing instead of increasing. One in three (32%) firms reported reduced cash flow over the last three months [Low profitability].

As a result, we need to raise £15 000 by the end of January to cover those extra costs, keep us going through the winter, and deliver our services in 2023!

Our longer-term plans:

 Here is what we plan to do once we’ve got to the other side of the winter

• Raise cash

We must raise £15 000 via the crowdfunding campaign to survive the winter without cutting critical services.

• Bike sales

We’ll review what we sell in our shops. If profits on refurbished bikes are razor-thin, what can we do to keep them affordable to the public? We’ll look into selling new products such as e-bikes.

• Train the team

We’ll keep training our volunteers to help us refurbish bikes, keep the labour costs low, and upskill the community. 

• Services

We’ll review all our services cycle training, Fix-Your-Own-Bike, and more to see what we should stop doing, keep doing or do differently.

• Income diversification

We launched Scotland's first Cytech training academy in November. Although still in the start-up phase, this is to become a valuable new source of income.

We’re about to launch Scotland’s first bike subscription scheme, where users can access a fully serviced bike for a fixed monthly price.    

What you can do to help us:

• Buy a reward from this crowdfunded - you have 12 month to use them!
• Share our crowdfunder and sign up to raise funds on our behalf.
• Use our hubs in Glasgow  West End or Southside to buy a bike or cycling accessories or book a maintenance class
• Donate a good quality bicycle
• Upskill yourself and book yourself into a Cytech mechanic course
• Buy a gift voucher you can use on any of our services!
• Any other ideas to raise funds are welcome. Email us at [email protected].

A variety of incentives are listed that we would love to offer you to redeem in our shops in the South or West of Glasgow. Anything you donate will help Bike for Good Survive the Winter!

Please help us!

We thank you in advance,  

Bike for Good Team