Debut term delight for Bury St Edmunds unique bike train that's one-of-a-kind in the UK

An innovative bike train in Suffolk has had an overriding positive reaction to its debut term on the roads.

There are only a handful of bike trains in the UK, but what makes the project in Bury St Edmunds unique is that it’s the only one to run rides before and after school as well as host it four days a week.

Whereas, other existing trains either take place in the morning or only do one day a week.

Libby Ranzetta, director at EcoCarriers BSE, is over the moon with how the first few months of the project has turned out.

The 55-year-old said: “I’m absolutely delighted. We’ve thrown a lot of effort, time and resources at it and I’m delighted people have responded so positively.

“We’re really really pleased with how its gone and I love that our volunteers and riders have risen to the challenge.

"I’m also really happy with how the families have taken part and the fact they’ve enjoyed it and fitted in well with what we’re trying to do.

After starting in September, the bike train has ran over 50 times this term and has about 200 people join them, with 13 people the most they’ve had in a group at one time.

The bike train is a free service aimed for Year 5 and 6 children who have completed Bikeability training, but any children with sufficient riding skills can also join at their parent or carer’s risk.

Where possible children are accompanied by a parent who also cycles and ride their own bikes to and from school in a group, supported by adult cyclists otherwise known as outriders.

Ms Ranzetta and the rest of the team’s goal is to essentially reduce the number of cars on the road and have received encouragement for this moving forward.

She said: “Parents really like what we do because they don’t have to worry about roads and junctions because we take care of that.

“When they accompany their kids they also learn the bike paths in town which they may not have necessarily known.

“We’ve also found that motorists are accommodating and patient which is a nice thing too.”

In Bury St Edmunds, each of the four routes run on a different weekday (excluding Wednesday) where children and their parents or carers, can join at any point along either the north, east, south or west routes that travel in and out the town centre.

The formation of the bike train has adult riders placed around the children with two outriders who go ahead and make sure it’s safe to let motorists they’re coming through.

Ms Ranzetta goes on the majority of these trips and can understand why some people may choose not to take part.

“Well I love riding my bike, and I think every kid should be able to ride to school if they want to,” she said.

“We enable other people to ride their bikes who might think it’s too dangerous, by making it safer for them so they feel more confident about riding to school. We’re a big presence and it cocoons the riders the way we set up.

“Most people have a bike but when you ask them why they don’t ride they say it’s too dangerous or they don’t feel confident. So what we want to do is get people’s confidence up so they can ride to work, the shops or wherever it may be.”

Moving forward, EcoCarriers BSE is planning a bike train for adults and has also begun a bike library to help young people gain better access to bikes.

Ms Ranzetta said: “To help get the bike train going, we ran some learn-to-ride sessions in the summer so families could improve their biking skills. Half the kids that turned up didn’t even have a bike.

“So we’ve set up a library, with bikes that people have donated or we’ve bought second hand and we make them roadworthy, then lend them out to families.

“If you join the library you get a bike and if you grow out of it you bring it back and get a bigger bike. It's a bike for life."