Stirling bike charity celebrates 20 years of helping most in need out on the roads

dailyrecord.co.uk:

It’s set to be a special year for a Stirling-based charity with the aim of relieving poverty and providing key skills through access to bikes.Recyke-a-bike, formerly known as Fallin Community Enterprises when it was first set up in 2005, has now moved its operations to a base in Causewayhead - where locals are given the opportunity to purchase recycled and re-purposed bikes at lower prices.In addition to the initial recycling social enterprise, the charity has now grown to provide several key projects, including visiting schools to deliver ‘bikeability’ sessions and also offering key bike mechanic and retail training.As part of its recycling ethos, Recyke-a-bike offer the opportunity for people in the region to hire regular and e-bikes for free for up to 25 days to improve active travel and cut down on people buying bikes and throwing them away.The charity’s operations manager Ella Brakefield - who has been working there for three years after leaving a previous corporate job - says its ethos has remained the same over its two decades as the projects it runs continues to grow.Ella said: “The whole premise of the charity being set up in Fallin was that it was a mining town with high levels of unemployment so it was a chance to upskill people working in the shop and keep things running with the sales.“We’re now offering everything from bike sales and repairs to working in the primary schools across Stirling and Clackmannanshire delivering training and even our ‘inspire-a’ride’ programme to provide various skills to help with education or further work.“A key focus we have had throughout is accessibility and inclusivity, we’re interested in how many people we can get cycling with confidence - whether they need it for