Maidenhead Cycle Hub team gather to celebrate 10th anniversary

Trustees and volunteers past and present gathered at St Mary’s Church on Tuesday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Maidenhead Cycle Hub.

The charity, which looks to get more people cycling through a range of initiatives, including bike servicing and repairs, was set up by former Maidenhead resident Luke McCarthy in 2015.

“The original reason was because I’d just moved to Maidenhead about a year before and I wanted to buy a good value and sensible quality bike to get around town and to get to and from the station,” Luke said.

“[I] looked around a few places and found there wasn’t really a sensible place to buy exactly what I was after.”

Luke set up a cycling charity to not only meet the needs he had at the time, but to support residents to ‘get good value bikes, to enable them to choose cycling’ and get around like he did.

The charity also provides advice on bicycle routes and cycling safety, organised bike rides and sells ‘affordable refurbished bikes’, in a bid to keep bikes from going into landfill.

Maidenhead Cycle Hub has a shop in the Nicholsons Centre, and a workshop in Bell Street.

On Tuesday evening, Luke was among around 45 people who gathered to share memories from the last 10 years and enjoy food and drink and a celebratory cake.

The event included highlights from the past decade and saw Luke share the story of how the charity came to fruition.

Maidenhead Cycle Hub’s mechanics and volunteers have refurbished more than 3,000 bikes over the last 10 years.

The 3,000th bike was on display at the event, as was the first refurbished bike to be sold.

Last year, the charity refurbished and sold more than 500 donated bikes.

Over the years, the team has visited schools and run community initiatives, including free bike safety checks with Dr Bike.

The Dr Bike events see mechanics carry out a light service and repairs to ensure bikes are in a reliable and safe condition.

On Saturday, October 25, a 10th anniversary bike ride will be taking place from Kidwells Park at 1.30pm.

Trustee Sarah London, said: “[We’re] always impressed by how many willing and interested people there are who want to come and help us.”

Shop volunteer Jennifer Decker said it is ‘great’ to help sell bikes, chat to customers and helping children pick out their first bike or their next bike up.

“Within the shop sometimes getting children to take their first cycle up and down the shop has been amazing,” she added.

During the event, the team also spoke of its ‘next challenge’ to find a new premises for its shop, should Nicholsons Centre re-development be given the go-ahead.

Attendees were asked to share ideas that could help with this.

Sarah added: “It’s finding something that’s suitable to act as a shop.

“It’s got be somewhere [where] people can find us easily, we’ve got footfall, but also it’s the right kind of size of premises.”

Reflecting on the milestone, Luke added: “It’s amazing to have been involved with setting something up.

“I did five years, and it’s brilliant to see that things have definitely accelerated since then.

“I think we did about 1,200 bikes in the first five years, and they’ve done 1,800 bikes since then.

“But it’s been brilliant to see both the number of bikes, but also the number of people that are involved as trustees and volunteers.”