Gaining the freedom to explore your neighbourhood is only one of the benefits a relationship with a bicycle can bring for a young person. When SYEP first launched its bike project back in April 2021 it was little more than some cycle maintenance lessons in an old church hall. Three years on and the project is bringing a multitude of benefits to the young people of Sprowston. Let us tell you a little more about how we got here.
Benefit number one: learning engineering skills
It all started while our communities were deep in lockdown, when we were all craving a way to escape the house. 2020 was a year when many of us noticed that broken bike in the back of the garage when looking for something to do with our hour of daily exercise. So, first up for the SYEP bike project was bike fixing. Initially we were running weekly sessions on repairing everything from brakes and gears through to bearings. The great thing about bikes is that learning the basic principles of how they work doubles up as an introduction to understanding some core engineering principles too. What’s more, the bikes our young people were learning on got renovated through the process and were distributed to those in need.
One thing this first chapter of the SYEP bike project taught us was that YouTube has been the cycle maintenance tutor for many young people. So many of them have lots of skills already. What they really wanted was experience to help them get a Saturday job in a bike shop. So this summer, with the support of Cycling UK, we’re running a series of Dr Bike sessions at the Urban Adventure Garden to give our young people experience of serving customers who want their bike repairing.
Benefit number two: riding skills development, peer support and exercise
Without exception, the young people we’ve drawn to the SYEP bike project have come with a love of riding their bikes, often off-road and over jumps. After a couple of years indoors fixing bikes, the opportunity to do some riding outside couldn’t come soon enough. Bunny hop and bar spin practice in the confines of a workshop was getting limiting. The summer of 2023 started with a move to Sprowston rec and the encouraging realisation that the riding skills developed in the workshop do translate to the pump track.
These summer months at the rec saw lots of new young people introduced to the SYEP bike project, and although they came with very different levels of riding skill, there was an encouraging spirit of solidarity within the crew. At the rec it was notable how many of the experienced young people were supporting newer riders to develop their skills. Sadly we quickly realised that the rec, like the workshop, only supported the development of riding skills to a limited degree. The SYEP bike project needed a permanent home of boundless possibilities.
Benefit number three: lessons in land guardianship
We wondered whether the change in weather would see a change in SYEP bike project attendance at the start of the winter of 2023. The project had moved to the Urban Adventure Garden and there was lots of hard labour to do. Though, as the winter months rolled on into early 2024, we were staggered at the dedication of our young people for picking up a spade and digging for two hours straight after a long day at school. Before the SYEP bike project turned up, the woodland at the foot of the Urban Adventure Garden was overgrown and unrideable. Though as the evenings got lighter, this spring the area was transformed.
The track at the Urban Adventure Garden runs on a basic principle: if you want to ride, you have to be willing to muck in with the digging. As we arrive at the summer of 2024 we’re excited to acknowledge that the track we’ve built together is enough to encourage enthusiastic riders to dig. The last 12 months of the SYEP bike project have been an unexpected lesson in how a winter of hard work brings rewards. The process of building a track together has brought all of our young people closer together. Three years into the SYEP bike project, our young people are better mechanics, are developing skills for the workplace and rediscovering how to support each other IRL.
