Winner of the Keith Fergus Annual Achievement Award, Kelly Fry is a Bikeability and cycling instructor based in Perth and Kinross.
Kelly Fry is presented the Bikeability Scotland Annual Achievement award trophy by David Collins, Bikeability Scotland Manager at Cycling Scotland
Recognised by the award panel for her endless motivation and enthusiasm for all things cycling, the award celebrates Kelly’s personal impact in supporting young people and new instructors across the country and her role in helping to deliver record Bikeability activity in Perth and Kinross, where all primary schools have now provided on-road Level 2 training to their pupils.
We caught up with Kelly as she finished leading an afternoon Bikeability session at Moncreiffe Primary School in Perth.
How do you feel, being named winner of the Keith Fergus Annual Achievement Award?
"It's a total surprise, total surprise. Just so lovely to receive. I worked closely with Keith Fergus and he mentored me for a little bit. It's lovely to receive the award in memory of him. I'm really grateful for that."
"To receive something that acknowledges all the work I've done is really nice. I've been doing Bikeability for 17 years. I've trained up loads of volunteers and cycle trainers as well, and I do a lot of learn to ride stuff, so I've taught hundreds of kids to ride a bike as well."
Tell us about your journey to being a Bikeability instructor
"I did a Master's Degree in Environmental Sustainability and I’m really passionate about transport itself. I was one of the first ‘I Bike’ officers in Perth, alongside a former colleague Lynn Stocks. We were brought in as project managers and for me it was about getting children to travel sustainably to schools."
"Over the years I've seen brilliant benefits: increased confidence, children just feeling healthier, fitter. My sons themselves have biked to school since they were in nursery. They have ADHD and it really helps them to arrive ready for school."
"Seeing that shift in children for me is really rewarding. So that's how I got into it on the sustainability side and did all my training through there and then just carried it on for a real passion and love for getting people cycling, especially children and especially women."
What’s the most rewarding part of your work?
"I like seeing the smiles on kids' faces. And for women as well, just seeing their self-confidence improve and feeling of achievement. For kids too, that feeling of achievement, accomplishment. Children who don't academically excel necessarily, can really feel an accomplishment with Bikeability and they just rock it. They love it. That for me is what I live for."
Bikeability Scotland Annual Achievement Award winner 2026, Kelly Fry, pictured with her bike
Is there anything memorable from the last year or so from Bikeability training that sticks in your mind?
"Actually, we had a really good thing at school this week. One of the young girls in the group came to us, and she couldn't cycle at all. We got her cycling with pedals and she was able to come out on the road.
"She wasn't feeling ready to take part in the road training but she wanted to watch it all. She did the real journey rides with us around the neighbourhoods and by the last day she was confidently standing up on her pedals in the playground activities."
"She was keeping up with the group, we didn't have to keep stopping and starting. The smile on her face and she was just telling everybody how excited she was and thrilled with herself and she really loved Bikeability."
Do you ever see children you’ve helped train, out on their bikes later?
"Oh yeah, all the kids in our neighbourhood ride their bikes. I do sometimes shout advice to them as they're going down the street! And I'm the local “bike lady”, so they bring their punctured tyres to me and mashed up chains and everything. I get a knock on the door, can you please fix my bike? 'Yes, okay, I'll get my tools…'"
What is it that you love about cycling?
"I love the feeling of freedom. It really helps me, you know, if you're having a down day, to get out on your bike. After about 10 or 15 minutes, you feel brilliant. I love that it's sustainable. I love everything about being on a bike. And I love that parking is free."
Why do you feel so strongly about getting more women and girls into cycling?
"The original job I did had a focus on getting adolescent girls cycling. And I know myself, when I learned to ride my bike, actually I was quite late. I learned to ride a bike when I was about 10 years old. I just didn't have a bike before that."
"I learned to ride a bike then, but then that gap between being about 11 and 15, I couldn't ride a bike to school because we lived an hour from my school. I went to an international school in Portugal when I was a teenager, but I rode my bike every day at home. I had something called Osgood- Schlatter syndrome with my ligaments, so I wasn't allowed to do any high impact sports, but I could still cycle. I cycled every single day at home."
"It gave me that sense of freedom, enjoyment. I could go out with my friends that lived in the same area. My dad is a greenkeeper. And so we'd all go riding around the golf course together and it was brilliant."
"So it was just, yeah, that freedom and enjoying myself. And I was really keen to get my friends cycling as well and get them to come in. So, when I got the job at Sustrans, I was like, oh, this is brilliant. I'm so keen to get adolescent girls cycling. You get them back on a bike, get them riding around the neighbourhoods and they're like: “this is brilliant, let's do more of this”. And you know that you see them out with their friends in parks and stuff afterwards and you see just the smiles on their faces and the enjoyment."
"I just want girls to feel like they can do it. They've got that stuff in them and to regain that joy that we feel when we're on a bike as a child. You can have that as an adolescent and as an adult and no one can take that away from you."
Bikeability Scotland Annual Achievement Award winner 2026, Kelly Fry, pictured with her trophy
What advice would you have for someone just starting out as a Bikeability instructor?
"I would say make Bikeability fun. Bring your own personality to it. You know, if you're zesty and quirky and a bit odd, kids love that."
"And work on your patience levels. Try and have small groups to start off. Yeah, just bring in fun and you're going to love it. Like the kids are usually super enthusiastic and it's a real milestone for them. It's a really important stage of their life that you're contributing to and they take those memories along for the rest of their life. I see people in neighbourhoods all the time. They come up to you and they're like, “I remember doing my cycle proficiency, I've still got my badge, I've still got my certificate”. And these are like 50-year-olds. So, it's a key stage you're working into. It sticks with people."
"It's almost like... bicycles sometimes become our long-lost friends. And when you rediscover them, there's that passion, that excitement. You know, like when you meet up with an old friend and you pick up where you left off, you've got thousands of stories to share and there's just that thrill and that excitement. It's a bit like that, isn't it?"
"People are like, oh, I'm going to get my bike out. Same with Play on Pedals. Primary teachers and nursery staff that come along, at first they say: 'I've not been on my bike for 20 years, please don't make me go on a bike'. And then by the end of the day they're like, have you got a list of bikes that we could get and what do you think I should get? They rediscover that joy that they've lost in childhood. So yeah, it's lovely."
Any final thoughts to share?
"I just... I love my job. You turn up at school and the kids are so full of enthusiasm and joy, and they're ready to just go out and have some fun. That just makes it worth it, every day going in and putting something into their lives."
"This incredible programme that they take with them for the rest of their life, and the same with the Play on Pedals instructor training and cycle instructor training… It's seeing people rediscover the joy of cycling and how beneficial it can be for them, not just for their health and well-being, but for the environment, for the neighbourhood, for families. It's just this runaway positive effect, positive loops. You start off that journey and then it just keeps building."
