Our story
Let's Go Tees Valley, the region's travel behaviour change programme, wanted to offer support to people who were interested in cycling to work, school or another regular journey but were discouraged by not being familiar with the route or were anxious about certain aspects of the journey.
We set up the Bike Buddy scheme to provide a one-to-one service to include route planning, a guided ride from home to a specific location, and cycle training along the way. It was designed as a 'hand-holding' service to show people the way to cycle and give them some pointers along the way.
In providing this service, we are directly removing the reliance on a motorised vehicle and giving people the confidence to cycle more often for local utility trips.
One of our Bike Buddy participants said: "I can highly recommend the Bike Buddy scheme. Kevin created three possible routes for me to cycle to work and then rode one of them with me for the first time, getting me there in good time to start work. Kevin immediately put me at ease and helped me to feel confident. It seemed that nothing was too much trouble.
"If you're new to cycling or, like me, it's a while since you've ridden a bike, I would recommend using the bike buddy scheme."
Our advice
It is important to keep drip-feeding information and ideas to your communities.
It may not suit everyone, but for those who need support and guidance, this kind of one-to-one training is the difference between cycling and using the car.
Our metrics
Number of enquiries we receive.
Completed Bike Buddy sessions.
