Bright red Trishaw cycle, 2 elderly participants seated in front smiling. Volunteer cycle pilot on back of cycle. Hove lagoon (water with windsurfers) in background
2 side by side seated tandem cycles, both cycles next to each other with 4 participants on waving and smiling. Buildings in background.

Accessible Cycle Rides

For elders living in care and anyone of any age living with disability or health needs

Stimulating outdoor adventures, improving quality-of-life and health.

Our rides enable people with limited or no access to outdoor activity to cycle regularly for health and wellbeing benefits. Rides are transformative for participants, their families and carers. Invigorating, fun, uplifting, exhilarating, healthy and (for 81% their only) outdoor activity. [Pedal People survey Sept. 2023.]

All aboard return buzzing. People passing the rides really notice the fabulous big trikes and interact positively, adding community connection to all involved.  Cycle adventures of 5-25Km per-ride across green and blue spaces make our rides exceptional and effective.

Awarded the MBE for charities. Our small team is just 2.2 staff and 44 volunteers and we operate on an incredibly lean budget that we fundraise for all-year, every year. Both our ride services are highly subsidised through our charitable fundraising, so are low or no-cost to participants.

We run 2 separate services:

1.  Elders living in care: Weekly set-schedule, piloted by our team of trained Volunteer Cycle-Pilots. We collect and return participants to their care home by trike.

2.  All-Ages any disability or health need:  We train carers/friends/family to cycle-pilot enabling (often for first time) riding together. For these rides we uniquely train carers, friends, family to cycle-pilot. Enabling people to cycle up to 25Km across their community makes our rides exceptional and effective. Variety of pedal/ non-pedal/ electric-assist multi-seat trikes. Cycle out together aboard the same trike. Book a ride via our website. Adaptable, accessible, with seat belt, swivel-out seats, arm rests. Easy-onboarding, suitable for complex needs and hoist available. 

Trailblazers. First of kind UK-wide:

  • Our training and specialist trikes enable 5-25Km adventures per ride, this makes our rides exceptional.

  • Combined seafront and city-centre location, gives access blue and green-spaces across the city. Other projects often limited to less accessible, visible and community-centric locations such as one park or looping athletic track. 

  • Operate both rides for Elders living in care homes plus an 'All-Ages Ride Service' for anyone of any age living with a health need or disability.

  • Our extraordinary rides are 12 months a year, with average 40 weeks riding of 52 per year, allowing for extreme weather cancellation.  We do go out in light rain when warm enough.  

  • Consistent minimum 50% Women Cycle Pilot Volunteers, Participant Advisory Panel, Staff and Charity Board*.  We offer inclusive, high-quality training to encourage ‘See it to be it’. By this we mean - when people see others like themselves/who they can relate to accessing, benefiting from and providing cycle rides – they are more likely to join in.

*Women are under-represented in cycling [Cycling UK 2022]. Women make up 51% of the population and 59% of unpaid carers (there are higher numbers of unpaid carers in deprived areas . Women are far more likely to care earlier and have a 50:50 chance of doing so by the time they are 46, men have the same likelihood but from 57 years old - 11 years later. (Carers UK 2023).


Why it matters

Over 80% of our participants report our cycle rides as their ONLY outdoor activity. Many spend the rest of their day inside, in a chair or bed, that’s around 20 hours of their days. We offer and highlight the wider accessible possibilities.

Initially when trying to locate our ride base we were only offered out-of-town on unused land. We knew that wasn’t the accesible, community-centric, visible inclusion needed, so we worked to gain full cross-political-party support for a visible, community-centred ride base and successfully negotiated Brighton & Hove City Council to help us site the base centrally and beach-side. They gave an exceptional grant towards our base in 2021 to show that support.

As a densely populated city, home to deprived communities and where 1 in 20 people report a disability, we know there is high need in Brighton- highlighted by our frequent waitlist.