Push Bikes campaigns for better cycling in Birmingham and Solihull. We also have an active social side, meeting up for cycling and more. New members are always welcome whether they want to be active or not, because the bigger we are the more influence we have.
We want to see everyone able to cycle safely, and to feel safe doing so, just as people do on the continent of Europe. The situation we have here, with cycling pushed to the margins and turned into an extreme sport requiring specialist clothing, is unusual in Europe (and indeed increasingly so on a global scale). In countries such as Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany, cycling is an everyday activity carried out in normal clothing by young and old alike. They do this because to varying degrees they are provided with infrastructure for cyclists. They do not have to ride assertively. They do not have to take the lane. They do not have to be capable of accelerating to the same speed as a car. They do not have to ride surrounded by trucks and buses.
The city council has made a start on its cycling revolution, with improvements to off-road routes, and the fantastic A38 and A34 corridor routes. These two corridor routes give you a taster of cycling in The Netherlands, and they were built as a result of relentless campaigning by Push Bikes for quality rather than quantity. We know so, because the council told us so. We need to build a critical mass of people critically supporting these projects to ensure the work is of the best possible quality and approved by councillors. We also need to ensure cycling is built into other planning applications. This is why you may have found one of our tags attached to your bike, and followed the link to this website. By the way, the tags are designed so they can be reused as a bookmark.
If you become a paid member, not only will you gain benefits from that membership, but also your subscriptions will allow us to be more ambitious. Best of all, if you would like to get active, feel free to come along to one of our campaign meetings.
You can also help simply by printing off further bookmark tags and attaching them to other bikes. It only takes a few seconds to spread the word. Don't worry if you don't have a colour printer; black and white is just fine. Since people actively using their bike tend to remove the tag, the relevant authority can also use them to spot abandoned bikes and free up the parking space for active cyclists more quickly.
