BIG INTERVIEW PASSION PROJECTS
Although it’s only been a full-time operation since the start of the year, Loud Mobility has already started to work on some large-scale and important projects. The first of these is delivering World Bicycle Relief’s global charity partnership with UCI Cycling World Championships. World Bicycle Relief has the goal of mobilising people through its tagline “The Power of Bicycles” and combines non-profit programs with social enterprise sales to meet the need for reliable transportation in low-income regions. In 2008, the charity founded a subsidiary called Buffalo
Bicycles Ltd, creating a rugged hybrid model of bike. To date, more than 700,000 of these bikes have been delivered with the goal of reaching one million by 2025. As part of reaching that target, the charity is working with the UCI to create awareness around the project. Loud Mobility will be helping the charity to deliver all of the fan zones, fundraising activity, promotional activity, Buffalo bike test rides, and being visible in the broadcast. “We’ve got the buffalo bike, it couldn’t be less of a performance bike, it’s heavy and it’s sturdy,” said Yexley. “We’re taking milk churns for people to try and move themselves and then try them on the back of the bike. “It’s about taking that audience and expanding their view of what the power of the bike is.” The second project Yexley is working on is in collaboration with Caz Conneller, the founder of Cyclechic and the She’s Electric campaign. ‘She’s Electric’ promotes the idea that e-bikes and e-cargo
bikes can significantly help women overcome many of the common barriers to cycling. The campaign is designed to achieve true gender equality
in cycling by addressing the issue head on and supporting and helping women to feel safe on electric bikes. “It goes beyond the typical context that’s given when you talk about women cycling of ‘I can do the shopping and I can drop the kids off at school’, “ said Yexley. “Absolutely, that’s a really important aspect, but women are also mechanics, have different types of disabilities and different types of e-cycles.
“It’s about real role models of real women
that have a broader representation and then also seeking to build that into a programme that has events and safe spaces and opportunities for women to connect with the cycles, ask questions and feel supported.”
BEYOND LOUD MOBILITY The final project that we discussed was borne out of conversations with a number of community cycling projects.
“This is a really Loud-led initiative but it came out of being communicative through
www.bikebiz.com
one of the women in cycling groups that I’m in,” said Yexley. “Alex from Cloud 9 Cycles, which has now sadly shut down, reached out to the group and said, ‘it’s been hard to keep our doors open, I feel like there should be better ways of sharing best practice, better ways of creating community amongst this network, is anyone up for just having a chat about this?’ “It came into a bigger conversation around the lack of evidence, lack of research, the limitations in accessing funding, the limitations of support or accessing information.” This led Yexley to delve deeper into how much information is out there. What help is available to a community start-up looking at putting together a funding application, or help to scale it up.
It turns out very little, so the Community Cycles Project was born.
“There are some people in the academic space that are doing some amazing work, but that tends to be on a really granular and focussed level,” said Yexley
“But what we realised is that on a national level, there’s a real lack of research, evidence and data around community cycling projects, identifying the impact that they are making in terms of broadening participation, lowering barriers to access and getting wider demographics of people into the cycling space.
“There’s also a lack of understanding and evidence around the barriers that they’re facing to scale that impact.” As well as just research, the project looks to then go on
to engaging wider stakeholders and actually developing solutions. If successful, it could lead to testing and trialling through feasibility work to support community cycling projects by making best practice, assets and tools available. To date, the project has secured the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) as a research partner, with a number of community cycling projects involved and interested in participation: “We’re looking at taking on a set of participants across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland,” said Yexley, “we want this data to be valuable also for Active Travel England and regional transport bodies.”
It’s evident in the discussion that this is a passion project for Yexley that has been brewing for many years.
“If Loud Mobility delivers that bit of research, it never goes any further, I’ll be happy,” said Yexley. “I will feel like I did what I wanted to do and that was to do something that’s really going to broaden participation in cycling, active travel, sustainable travel, in a way that is more than just driven by how many people are getting on bikes. This is the type of work that is the core, and it’s why Loud Mobility is always going to go onto something that’s much more than me.”
August 2023 | 25
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