About Wheelrights

Wheelrights was formed in 1995 by David Judd, Veronica Wood and the late Bob Burn. These three stood down in 2004 and since then until early 2007 it was 'in Limbo'. It was then revived. We set up a structure with officers as listed below and a 'working group' (we felt 'committee' too formal) consisting of any sufficiently interested to come along to meetings and become involved. We hold an agm in the autumn. Our aims are as follows.

   1. To encourage and assist potential cyclists to take up
      cycling and thereby prepare them for using a bike as a
      means of transportation.

   2. To campaign for better provision for cyclists in the
      Swansea Bay area.

   3. To provide information about cycling related activities.
To implement the first aim Wheelrights provide cycle training for beginner adults and follow this up with our summer programme of Explorer rides. These are short evening rides on traffic free paths which incorporate a pub stop. Their purpose to give beginners the confidence to cycle on-road so that they can use their bikes to commute, shop, etc. The classes have been very successful with 80-90% learning to ride from scratch in the two hours. The Events page gives details of forthcoming classes/rides.

Implementation of our second aim involves behind-the-scenes campaigning (meetings with Council officers, representation on Swansea's Cycle Forum, etc.). In addition we organise occasional public meetings and participate in cycle promotion activities.

Our third aim involves provision of information about cycling events, principally organised rides.

Why we are needed
The need to improve health by providing opportunities for and encouraging healthy exercise has never been greater, as are also measures to reduce CO2 to combat global warming. Cycling can contribute to both of these; it can help bring about a modal shift away from cars and in so doing can improve the fitness and health of those who cycle.

There is the potential to make a major dent in the use of cars both for commuting and for other journeys of less than five miles. This applies particularly to school trips. Currently just over 1% of children cycle to school in Swansea. A tenfold increase would be needed to bring this up to European levels (and even then it would be much less than in Denmark). Sustrans plan to get 10-15% of all pupils cycling to school and have achieved more than this in some of the schools they have targeted. At one school in Suffolk twothirds of the children cycle to school and in Copenhagen the figure is 40%. So why should not Sustran's target at least be achieved in Swansea?

To achieve the necessary model shift to cycling a change in attitude is needed together with measures ranging from infrastructure improvements, through regulation changes, to education. Wheelrights' role is to act as a catalyst in this process.

Officers
Chairman: Nick Guy. Phone (evenings): 01792 476178 ; e-mail: nick.guy@swansea.gov.uk
Secretary and Webmaster: David Naylor. Phone: 01792 233755; e-mail: davidjohnnaylor@tiscali.co.uk
Treasurer and Membership: Geoff Wood. Phone: 01792 206617; e-mail: g.v.wood@swansea.ac.uk
City and County of Swansea Cycling Officer: Rob Wachowski. Phone: 01792 636353; e-mail: rob.wachowski@swansea.gov.uk.

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Page updated on 18 July 2008.