Referral scheme – Newcastle and Chester-Le-Street

The bike referral scheme enables us to provide a free bike, helmet, lock and lights to schools, community groups and people on very low incomes living in Newcastle and Chester-Le-Street. Anyone meeting the criteria can be referred in to us by a professional of any kind. Our criteria are the following:

• They are resident in Newcastle upon Tyne or Chester-le-Street if over the age of 10 (referrals for under 10s will be accepted from Newcastle, Gateshead, North Tyneside, Durham and Northumberland).
• They are on a low income and could not afford a bike by other means.
• A bike is likely to make a positive difference to their financial situation, their physical health or their mental health.

We always have high demand for this service so the wait can be several months. For more information contact vanessa@recyke.bike

Supported volunteering – Newcastle

Every Tuesday, we provide supported volunteering sessions to people seeking asylum and refugees. Here, they can learn how to build and fix a bike – starting from their own and then moving on to help us build referral bikes. The volunteers attending sessions have always been very enthusiastic and their help is gratefully appreciated. We have also seen that the sessions greatly help participants, providing an opportunity to be involved in useful activities and focus on something other than the worries and uncertainties they face. They also make for the beginning of a life within the larger community, allowing them to feel part of something with a real connection to place and people. To learn more about it, write to vanessa@recyke.bike.

Salvaging Project – Newcastle and Chester-Le-Street

Through the salvaging project, donated bikes which are not economically viable to refurbish are stripped for parts and whatever is possible to recycle is recycled. Bikes are stripped, tyres re-used or sent for recycling (thanks to Newcastle City Council for enabling us to access their tyre recycling facilities), parts, frames and wheels are cleaned and re-used or sent to the local metal recycling plant. Not only does this generate income which we can invest back into the charity; it also means that cyclists can buy good quality second hand parts at affordable prices, making cycling even more affordable. See a full report of this project here. 

Young Volunteers Club – Newcastle

Our Saturday Young Volunteers Club is underway with supervised sessions running from 10am – 12pm and 12pm – 2pm. The aim is to engage with young people using bikes as the medium and then support them to grow their confidence, self-esteem and interpersonal skills alongside their mechanical skills. The popularity of the Young Volunteers Club is such that we now have a waiting list. If you are a young person or the parent or carer of a young person who’d like to get involved please fill in the Young People’s Application and Consent Form.

Pop-ups in schools

Funding from LGA foundation enables us to run weekly bike repair workshops at Byker Primary School. These hands-on sessions are great for teaching children how to maintain their own bikes. Children receive a colouring poster and a bike book where they keep track of the new things they learn and occasionally we reach out to parents so they can bring their children’s bikes to be fixed by our team, creating wider benefit. If you are a school interested in collaborating with us, write to vanessa@recyke.bike

Street bike repair workshops – in partnership with Kids Kabin Newcastle

During the street bike repair workshops, children work out what needs fixed, select and reuse spare parts, and learn how to use a variety of bike tools both confidently and safely. Not only do they develop new skills, but they work together to help each other. Kids are able to borrow toolkits to help them to put their learning into practice between sessions. Hundreds of bikes are fixed, saving families money, preventing bikes going to landfill unnecessarily, and helping more local children learn about re-use and recycling. Children are empowered to choose cycling more as an active, healthy, and environmentally-friendly way of getting around.

Women Only Sessions – Newcastle and Chester-Le-Street

Every last Tuesday of the month and every first Wednesday of the month, from 5:30 to 7pm, we deliver women only workshops in our shops in Newcastle and Chester-Le-Street respectively. The sessions in Newcastle are mostly unstructured with women dropping in with or without their bikes to ask questions, carry out their own repairs, learn from other women and feel more confident that they can deal with any issues that might occur when out riding. Because of the limited space, the sessions in Chester-Le-Street work more like a masterclass, with one bike each time being used as an example to focus on different issues that may arise. Sessions are delivered by our fantastic female volunteer mechanics whose enthusiasm is infectious! Participants have fed back: “Everyone is so friendly, not intimidating at all, which I worried it might be. Thank you so much!”

Bite & Bike repair workshops for young people – Chester-Le-Street

Since November 2022, we have partnered with community centres, cafes, and Riverside Park to bring our popular workshops of bike repair to Chester-Le-Street, These workshops are suitable for children and young people aged 7-16 and teach all the basics of bike maintenance, from pumping a flat tyre to doing an M-check and adjusting brakes. Young people are invited to bring their own bikes so they can be safety-checked and fixed them with the help of our mechanics. Interested? Click here to book a free space on the next workshop.