The success of Velodarlo has been recognised with a national award to expand the project into 2010. DarLOVElo will launch on December 9th at the UK premiere screening of Beauty and the Bike, the documentary film about our work.
The award comes from the New Ideas Fund, a national scheme run by Bike Hub and funded by, amongst other things, a small levy on all bikes sold in UK participating shops. The Fund previously launched the Bike It scheme, run by Sustrans, that is now a feature of the majority of Britain’s schools. The hope is that DarLOVElo, focused on getting more women into cycling, will provide a similar launchpad for what will eventually become a feature of every town and city in the country.
Harri repairs an inner tube
DarLOVElo will inherit the Velodarlo Bike Pool, and will receive initial funding of over £30,000 to buy some 40 more bikes, and to set up a base with part-time staff near the centre of the town. The young women from the Beauty and the Bike project are committed to founding the Bike Club that will be the central feature of the new project. Already, they have been receiving skills training from members of Darlington Cycling Campaign in repairs and maintenance.
Unprecedented interest in our bikes has led to a doubling of our fleet of dutch bikes within a month, and a growing waiting list.
Two more teenagers, Ashley Mulangu and Lesley Ann Grace, have joined the Beauty and the Bike project. Last week, Ashley’s beautiful new red Excelsior arrived. Lesley Ann is waiting on a suitable bike coming up.
But wider interest in the project amongst adults has also been growing. We now have 14 bikes in our scheme, ten of which have been bought new and four on loan from Darlington Cycling Campaign and Darlington Borough Council.
A growing waiting list means we are now putting together a bid for funding a much larger pool of around 50 bikes. There is no doubt that this kind of gentle cycling is catching on in Darlington.
Nicole watching on as Andy and Marie crack on with the repair.
Darlington Cycling Campaign was called out today on its first urgent repair job for the Beauty and the Bike project. The Campaign has been commissioned to provide a repair and maintenance service for Velodarlo’s wonderful dutch bikes for the duration of the project.
Until now, they’ve been dealing with minor issues such as cabling, basket installs and re-tightening nuts and bolts after bike transit. But today Nicole called with a rear tyre puncture, after a thorn got into the inner tube. The Excelsior bike, like most in the Velodarlo fleet, has 28″ wheels. A call to Halfords revealed that these are regarded as “rare these days” in this country. Funny how a town can be so behind the times that “modern” here is already becoming “out of date” elsewhere, but that’s so-called entrepreneurial capitalism for you.
So a 27″ inner it had to be. Step forward the heroes of the hour, Campaign members Andy and Marie. They were over to Nicole’s house within the hour complete with tool kit, and had the tube replaced after another 30 minutes. After the job, they both said that the task with a dutch bike is totally different to the usual UK mountain bike, with chain guards and hub gears to grapple with. And with the size and type of spares also differing, the chances are that one of the local bike shops would have had problems. But they reckon that with a few more tube changes, the Campaign should have the collective knowledge to manage future issues without a problem.
Nicole is now back on two wheels again, and will be seen on the roads of the town tomorrow morning on her way to her Maths GCSE.
Two new Excelsior dutch bikes have now been ordered to increase the pool of bikes available for hire to ten. The popularity of these stylish red bikes has meant a waiting list has developed in the town.
The Red Excelsior Dutch Bike
The new bikes will partly be financed by a hire fee of £3 per week per bike for customers not involved in the Beauty and the Bike project. The bikes are funded by the efforts of the girls, young women, and Darlington Media Group members who are producing this ground-breaking documentary about young women and cycling.
The new bikes are expected to arrive during the first week in June, and are already booked until mid July.
With all the bikes in our bike pool either booked or out on hire, the first few weeks of Velodarlo has produced a significant first step in bringing stylish cycling to Darlington. Not surprisingly, takeup has been primarily by members of the Beauty and the Bike project. But this has been augmented by a few bookings by older residents.
Velodarlo currently has eight bikes available for hire, including two that have been loaned to the scheme by Darlington Brough Council, and a further two loaned by members of Darlington Cycling Campaign. The Excelsior bikes have been proving particularly popular, and we hope to add a further two to our fleet during the next couple of months.
Sofija Kriauciunaite spent a week in Bremen with the rest of the Beauty and the Bike girls from Darlington Media Group. Here she gives her first impressions of the place.
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