At Just Ride Southend we provide opportunities for people of all ages, faiths, abilities, and ethnic backgrounds to enjoy cycling in a safe and affordable traffic-free environment. The Just Ride Southend family is made up of volunteers and participants from Southend and the wider area, and includes individuals, schools and colleges, families, adult day centres and local community groups. All are assured of a warm inclusive welcome at our public sessions which take place three times each week at present throughout the year on the Garons park athletics track, using any of our 130 plus bicycles from 2 wheelers through to electric powered wheelchair platform bikes. Through our activities we promote the physical, social, and mental health and well-being of our local community and are supporting both local and national initiatives to encourage people to be more active and to choose healthy and sustainable transport options. We also provide training for the Just Ride volunteers which includes mechanical, social, first aid and cycling skills.
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How we began
Just Ride Southend (JRS) started out in early 2014 and became charity (CIO) in August 2018. Our objective is to offer people of all ages and abilities the chance to enjoy cycling in a safe and supported environment. A partnership was established comprising of enthusiastic volunteers, Cycle Southend, Project 49 (a local day service for adults with learning disabilities), Southend Public Health and Southend Borough Council
A start up grant was awarded by Southend Borough Council to enable the group to purchase two storage containers and to pay for them to be located at Garon’s Leisure Centre’s athletics track, several bikes including adapted cycles were purchased with the remaining grant, a third container was added in 2016 to help provide extra space for storage of more bikes due to the popularity of the project (we now have 130 plus bikes and helmets for people to use). This third container also now houses a small maintenance / workshop area.
In 2022, we are up to three morning sessions of 2 hours a week, JRS has between 50-150 riders a session (depending on the weather) – with a similar number of carers/parents either joining in or relaxing alongside the track. On Saturdays, the numbers are often higher, and we extend our sessions by an hour in the summer to help accommodate extra demand, this can mean that on many weeks over 400 people are enjoying cycling at Just Ride, including approximately 300 with additional needs, disabilities and learning difficulties plus carers. We see over 10,000 people through our project for the 50 weeks that we are open every year.
Because we are an inclusive community project, we see a diverse cross section of riders, which can mean each day of the week having a different feel to it. Weekdays will often see a group of ladies meet up and ride round together chatting, building up their confidence, as well as supported adults using their one-to-one time with carers or as part of a small group from local Day Services. We regularly see Care Homes, Supported Housing and local Special Schools. We are also seeing increasing numbers of home-schooling families, and people recovering from operations, heart issues and joint replacement, along with those who are retired and looking for safe and social places to exercise and chat. Some riders bring their own bikes or helmets, most riders use ours, but all make the most of the traffic free environment.
During the school holidays local charities supporting children with additional needs have used the scheme as part of their programme of activities. Many families attend several days each week over the holidays, due to the low cost (£2.50 donation per rider -carers and parents of children riding go free). Children who have attended from special schools often return with their whole family including sibling from mainstream schools.
Volunteers
There are currently over 35 people who volunteer to help with JRS. They offer many diverse skills from bike maintenance to buddying. We have our own dedicated volunteer bike mechanics now – with their qualification paid for by JRS. Some of the volunteers have additional needs and they bring their personal experience to enrich what they can offer the riders – and act as fabulous role models. Some of the riders have become volunteers and some volunteers have developed into session leaders. Specific training is offered to volunteers depending on their interests e.g., cycle maintenance or teaching bike riding skills. We are always looking for more volunteers and no experience or interest on cycling is necessary.
Learn to Ride
For 3 years JRS has employed 3 British Cycling Coaches to teach people of all ages and abilities to ride, we have had huge success with those with learning difficulties. To date, more than 300 people have benefited from this (we have struggled to keep up with demand) and all feedback has been excellent – and there have been lots of very excited new riders!
What next? Just rides Vision for the future
A major project for the charity is that we are looking for extra development space, ideally located around the athletics track at Garons, to accommodate a fitted out dedicated cycle maintenance workshop, further storage space for specialist bikes and potential reuse-recycled special needs bike shop sales area. This is an exciting idea and would bring many benefits to our present volunteers and the cycling community and allow us to diversify into training and building a bike maintenance centre for us and the local community, so we can strive to reach our goal of developing JRS into a centre where anybody, regardless of age or ability, can enjoy the freedom and benefits that cycling can offer.
We are constantly looking to upgrade and improve the quality of bikes available; we have seen a notable rise in numbers of wheelchair users following from Covid lockdown and often have a que for our existing 4 wheelchair platform bikes and are looking to increase and replace some of these with new electric assistance platform bikes.