New community bike hub opens in Liverpool

A brand new 'bike hub' operated by a Merseyside-based non-profit has opened on Liverpool's waterfront, offering affordable bicycles for hire and purchase and a host of free and low-cost cycling-based activities and skills workshops. They want to make cycling safer and more accessible.

HYPE Urban Bikes city centre hub aims to make cycling accessible to all and get people living in and visiting the region on their bikes to explore the area, improve their health and wellbeing, and promote green, active travel.

Chief Executive Matthew Houghton told LiverpoolWorld: "We know that from the schools that we've worked in, a lot of children age 9 and 10 can't ride a bike. We know that if they go to secondary school, the chances are they're probably not going to pick up a bike. Ten years down the line, are they going to be encouraging their children to cycle?"

HYPE provides free and low-cost activities, including road and cycle safety sessions, group rides and balance bike sessions, and a host of courses and workshops. When Merseyside Police can't find the owner of a bike, they donate them to charities, including HYPE.

Pippa Wilcox, who works in the force's prevention hub, told LiverpoolWorld: "One of the things that we also partner with HYPE and all bike retailers across Merseyside Is we provide bike marking kits. The bike register is a national cycle database and if a bike is marked, statistics have shown it's 83 per cent less likely to be stolen."

As a not-for-profit organisation, all monies generated by the bike hub will be invested back into the community, funding events and initiatives and the establishment of future hubs in other boroughs in the city region.

HYPE Urban Bikes sprang to life out of bike projects by the social enterprise in Birkenhead. Since 2017, it has supported more than 6,800 people with bikes, trained 63 young people as bike mechanics, and engaged more than 1,300 children aged 3-7 years in balance bikes programmes in schools.

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