See how Trevor, Rocio and family use bikes, including their cargo bike to get around Stratford at weekends, much quicker than they would by car. Rocio, who has ALS, rides an E-trike, showing the true potential of these machines for everyone.
The family are part of Stratford Cycle Forum. To find out more contact: andy.list@btinternet.com
[Music] we usually get about around Stratford by bike or sometimes walking depending on the weather and how late we’re running we hardly ever use the car it’s it’s only if it’s torrential rain or it’s slightly out of town where it’s a bit dangerous to get to very quick it’s a form of exercise because we both work from home so it’s good to actually do some movement I think for the weekend activities it’s very convenient to get around normally what we do every Saturday take the kids to the sports clubs Martina goes to the Rowing Club so it only takes like 10 minutes 15 minutes to ride from our house to the Rowing Club or the tennis club and then when you go in the car you end up taking like half an hour because there’s so many other cars around I think it’s incredible how congested this town is for such a small town you can walk anywhere if you want to in the bike you don’t spend more than 20 minutes going from one end to the other you barely see anyone doing that there are some really nice bike routes which are completely off the road we’re lucky to have one right here next to the house that can take us down to the river and into town that way a lot of people aren’t aware of the infrastructure statford isn’t a perfect place to cycle but it’s getting a bit better I think now that they’ve put the 20 mph our speed limit in the the central parts of town I think that’s helped and the main problem at the moment I think is there’s no way to cross the river without getting off the bike and and just walking across if there was a dedicated bridge for cyclist it would be much much better my daughter’s going to rowing my son’s going to tennis the river again is very high due to the the heavy rainfall we’ve had it’s already flooded twice this month completely burst its banks and today the the river level is rising again likelihood it’s she’s not going to be able to go out it’s a bit Waring to be honest because since we’ve been living here at least we’ve only seen the river flood on a few occasions but never almost three times in in the space of a month I like playing tennis with my dad I always cycle to the D we book or my lesson practic his tennis for a little while and then I go with my cargo bike uh to town go to the library or to a book shop or to do some general random shopping and then I meet them after they finish the uh sports activities it’s called amot trophic lateral sclerosis or ALS he was about a year old he’s seven now he started with apparently how he normally starts with a drop food that you couldn’t explain it just happened and then started to progressively weaken my my uh right leg it’s obviously a progressive debilitating illness and it will progress all the way up to the whole body steephen Hawkings he suffered from that thing the same illness first I had a normal without any electric assistance and just two wheels cargo bike the beauty of this tricycle at the stage I am at least I can carry on having a a normal life just doing the thing I normally do I can carry on pedaling at a normal Pace take things in the bike my son everything and I still able to do it the fact that I don’t have to rely on my legs to balance the bike with all the weight in it I just can just break and weigh sitting down we originally had a long Jong cargo bike as they called mainly for school runs that’s perfectly designed to have children in front of you where you see them so you can talk and it’s just a a lot safer than than a normal bike just with a a Char seat on the back from that it was just so practical and so useful that we ended up using it for for lots of other things as well the shopping and just general trips and use it pretty much as a car I was on myON in the in the cargo bike and I said you know what I want that Christmas tree so I said to him ah shall I go back no no no don’t go back just I I’ll help you to put it in the bike so I was on my own with a massive Christmas tree and everyone was just just staring at me if I was crazy don’t blame them we prove ourselves that we think you can’t do it but you actually can it’s not complicated if you drive around Stratford at the wrong time of day it can be quite frustrating because it’s gridlocked all the Birmingham Road area up there can be can be really bad I’ll go to the maybird center via the dedicat a cycle path some of them are shared the only downside I think is where you have to to cross over the side roads you you do have to to look over your shoulder to make sure no cars are turning in and also some of the crossings the traffic lights take a long time so the the infrastructure it’s it’s still geared more towards the car the cyclists are definitely the lowest priority along there but hopefully things will change the infrastructure is absolutely deplorable in this town I mean you see the cycle path in the new areas that they build it’s just a ticking box exercise it’s tiny cars use it as a car park I think that people should complain more about the state of the paths about traffic about cars things environmentally are changing so rapidly that we can’t all just sit back and rely on government policy to to change overnight it needs to be forced by by the public I think they need to know that that there’s a a wish or a desire to to change if you go on the car for a really long journey yeah that that’s fine but if it’s just in straford then yeah you should go on on the bike [Music]