Access to bikes

Travelling by bike helps connect people to work, education, social activities, and opportunities. Across Scotland, inequality of access and costs related to public transport can isolate people from essential services and job opportunities. Over a third of households lack car access in cities like Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

For young people, those with low incomes, insecure jobs or disabilities, cycling offers independent travel and a way of accessing essential services and leisure activities.

Cycling Scotland work with a number of Regional Transport Partnerships to support the delivery of the Scottish Government’s People & Place programme.

What support is available?

We can provide one-to-one advice to support affordable access to bikes for young people and schools. This may mean signposting to other organisations that we work with.

Contact us to find out more

Bikes for young people

In 2024-25, more than 3,000 bikes were funded for young people who could not otherwise afford to access one. A further 2,341 new and upcycled bikes, including six adaptive bikes for young people with additional needs, were funded and distributed in 2023-24.

Reducing transport poverty across Scotland

Cycling Scotland has funded organisations across 24 local authorities, including Volunteering Hebrides working to alleviate transport poverty in the rural villages surrounding Stornoway and St Paul’s Youth Forum in Glasgow.

Working with partners to distribute bikes

Over 90 organisations, including schools and youth and community groups work with us to distribute bikes and ensure young people continue to benefit.

Bike reuse

Making it easier and more affordable to access a bike is vital in supporting more people to cycle. One element of this is bike reuse: saving bikes from landfill, repairing and restoring them, and then redistributing them back to schools, community groups. 

Data from just 12 months in 2023 to 2024 shows the potential impact of bike reuse in Scotland:

  • 8,000 bikes refurbished
  • More than 10,000 people benefitting
  • 200 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill

“Bike reuse reduces waste, provides opportunities in our communities and changes lives.” 

Read the full report

Giving old bikes a new lease of life in Glasgow

Through a collaboration between Glasgow City Council, St Paul’s Youth Forum, HMP Barlinnie and Cycling Scotland, a pilot project is giving old bikes a new lease of life to support more people to travel by bike. 

  • More than 500 bikes are expected to be collected
  • A potential 6,250 tonnes of metal will be saved from going to scrap
  • At any one time, 16 inmates in the prison workshop will repair bikes whilst learning new skills

The pilot is funded by the Scottish Government’s People and Place Programme and delivered through Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), working with Glasgow City Council, St Paul’s Youth Forum, and Cycling Scotland.

Find out more about the pilot project

The impact of introducing cycling to Yusuf Youth Initiative's programme of activities has been huge, becoming a popular choice among the more than 200 young people who take part weekly in the organisation's programmes.

They now have a fleet of adults and kids bikes to loan out to the community to learn to cycle and take part in activities, and staff trained to deliver Bikeability Scotland training, led rides and bike maintenance classes.

Yusuf Youth Initiative

Dundee

Yusuf Youth Initiative