Wheels for Wellbeing keep turning
In our guest blog this month Isabelle Clement from Wheels for Wellbeing reflects on her visit to the Cycle Show, and how far things in disability cycling have come...
This year’s Cycle Show – the huge cycling exhibition that took place at the end of September – was my third, and what a contrast with three years ago!
My organisation, Wheels for Wellbeing, pioneered the concept of the Inclusive Cycling Hub at the Cycle Show three years ago and we've been present each year since, promoting the vast potential for disabled people to get into cycling. It was an idea born from the visionary brains of Janet Paske (the founder of WfW) and John Simnet (then owner of the Whizzbike chain of cycle shops in West London and creator of the Whizzbike Foundation). Showcasing disability cycling at the Cycle Show felt very daring back then! There was hardly a disabled person in sight, and most visitors passed the stand looking as puzzled as if we had descended straight from Mars.
This year could not have been more different. Every day we met disabled visitors of all ages, the majority of whom came with the clear expectation of finding something relevant to them. And they were right: at the show were several manufacturers and retailers of electric-assist bikes, two of the largest specialist cycle retailers, smaller brands and a number of grassroots disability cycling projects with years of experience to be learning from.
I spent a lot of time handcycling my way around the show, canvassing for votes for WfW (more about this in a moment). I got the strong impression that the cycling world is finally waking up to the fact that it's going to be increasingly pushed out of its comfort zone by non-standard bike users asking for slightly different attachments for lights, different bike racks and storage solutions, different cycle clothing and inclusive rides. And for the savvy ones of course, this could turn into one big new business opportunity! For those who want to work more closely with organisations such as Wheels for Wellbeing, who understand the disabled cyclist market, we say 'welcome on board!' We're hoping it can grow into something very substantial for the benefit of disabled people and the cycling economy.
In large part, we owe this growth in interest to the fantastic GB cyclists and paracyclists who slashed so many records and got so many medals this summer. So it was an absolute delight to meet Olympic and Paralympic gold medallists Sir Chris Hoy, Joanna Rowsell and Sarah Storey at the Cycle Show stage and over at the Inclusive Cycling Hub. They were extremely supportive of our work to bring the joy of cycling to hundreds of disabled people in London and to raise awareness of what’s possible nationwide. Sarah and Joanna (pictured above) came to the stand and voted for Wheels for Wellbeing in the National Lottery Best Sports Award competition. Ah, yes, the National Lottery: did I mention that we wanted to win this award for Best Sports Project? Did I say we were the only cycling project in the finals? You can help us win by taking a moment to click here and vote for Wheels for Wellbeing. In fact we’d love you to do that for us!
Isabelle Clement is the Director of Wheels for Wellbeing, a disability cycling charity based in Brixton, South London. She is a recreational handcyclist who discovered cycling when her son got his first little bike and she invested in a clip-on handcycle so she could keep up with him.
