RETAILERS
“Marlow is an attractive town with an affluent population,” said Rackstraw. “It’s great for cycling, with beautiful countryside around the
Chiltern Hills, so we have a lot of road cyclists and mountain bikers, and leisure riders as well. “It’s a very pretty town, but it hasn’t really embraced active travel at all, so it does have lots of traffic problems.”
Local links Rackstraw’s thoughts on active travel have been one of the inspiration behind Saddle Safari’s evolving business, as Rackstraw aims to use the store as a catalyst for change. It was this philosophy that led to Saddle Safari launching its own e-cargo bike demo programme. “We’re just trying to get more cargo bikes out and visible within the town. If more people see them, their feeling that ‘this isn’t for me’ will change. “People don’t consider them an option, but if they see them out there they may think ‘maybe we can use the car less, and use a cargo bike for the weekly shop, or to take the kids to school.’
“But it’s never going to change overnight.” Saddle Safari’s e-cargo campaign was set up to encourage more people to use bikes for transport instead of just sport and leisure. Rackstraw and the team are keen to promote the free loans of their Trek Fetch+2 e-cargo machine, so routinely publicise the initiative on social media, and have even pulled together a ‘day in the life of an e-cargo bike’ YouTube video, featuring
Saddle Safari owner, Andy Rackstraw
Rackstaw’s wife Claire, to help encourage more people to try. Alongside the e-cargo bike loan, Saddle Safari is part of the local community in other ways - from producing its own local route guides, to involvement in a local campaign opposing the building of a new film studio on belt land near Marlow.
An unexpected niche Saddle Safari caters to just about every type of cyclist,
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