Lack of access to a suitable mobility aid, cycling opportunities and lack of awareness can reduce or remove the ability to travel safely and independently for many, as evidenced in Wheels for Wellbeing’s inclusive cycling guide. In addition, Sustrans’ Disabled Citizens’ Inquiry found that 86% of disabled people across the UK would find it useful for them to walk or wheel more if everyone who requires a mobility aid had financial support and advice to access one to meet their needs. In efforts to remove some of these barriers, the Wheels4Me London scheme will offer free, accessible cycle loans for people across London for up to a month at a time.

Wheels4Me is born of two London-based organisations, Wheels for Wellbeing and Peddle My Wheels. To allow the best use of our limited resources and expertise to provide proper support and ensure this program is a success, and as a condition of our funders, we are only able to support individuals local to us. If things go well and demand is demonstrated, who knows, Wheels4Me could be coming to a city near you next! Do still get in touch to be added to our database if you'd like us to expand to your area.

Everyone starts somewhere! Maybe you cycled as a child but your needs have now changed or maybe you've never touched a cycle in your life, either way, we are here to help. Experienced cyclists or novices, our best recommendation is to come along to one of our regular, scheduled, open cycling sessions at any of our 3 locations, or a similar scheme near you, and see if there is a cycle you can see yourself wanting to ride for longer. These sessions are conducted in a safe and secure environment with the opportunity to test your road skills on a 'led ride' and only cost £5 a session. We have a range of cycles to explore and our friendly, experienced cycling instructors and volunteers will always be on hand to help you out and answer any questions. You can learn more about how and where we operate and register to book a session below: https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/cycling-sessions/ None of those suitable for you? Get in touch with our Cycling Advisor and we'll see if we can find another opportunity or location for you to give it a go and gain some experience.

Unfortunately, at this time, the scheme is not set up or resourced to support applications for those under 18 years old. Provided there is enough demand we may consider expanding our scheme in the future. Do get in touch to be added to our database. For our younger riders, Wheels for Wellbeing offers cycling sessions geared towards those under 25 with a range of suitable cycles on offer and a safe, secure environment to enjoy them with expert support from our friendly session leaders and volunteers. Their Sunday, 'Young Wheels' open sessions, are held at the Croydon Arena, which have 45 minutes timeslots available at 1 pm and 2 pm. More information can be found here: https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/sessions-for-children/ Campaigning for inclusive cycling, Wheels for Wellbeing Wheels for Wellbeing is an award-winning charity supporting disabled people of all ages and abilities to enjoy the benefits of cycling. wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk Grants may exist to help families purchase adapted cycles for young people. https://cyclingforall.org/cycles/funding/funding-your-bike/

We are sorry we haven't been able to support you on this occasion. To allow the best use of our limited resources and expertise to provide proper support and ensure this pilot program is a success, and as a condition of our funders, we are only able to support individuals who meet specific criteria. If things go well and demand is demonstrated, Wheels4Me might one day be able to expand to support others too. Do still get in touch to be added to our database if you'd like us to keep a record of your interest. In the meantime, everyone is always welcome to come along to one of our regular, scheduled, open cycling sessions at any of our 3, South London locations. These sessions are conducted in a safe and secure environment with the opportunity to test your road skills on a 'led ride' and only cost £5 a session. We have a range of cycles to explore and our friendly, experienced cycling instructors and volunteers will always be on hand to help you out and answer any questions. You can learn more about how and where we operate and register to book onto a session below: https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/cycling-sessions/ None of those suitable for you? Get in touch with our Cycling Advisor below and we'll see if we can find another opportunity or location for you to give it ago and gain some experience. There are many fantastic schemes around the country offering similar opportunities and sometimes something totally different, and we will always do our best to find some way to help you cycle, even if its not with us.

We do not sell cycles. Our cycles belong specifically to our loan scheme, and were purchased on conditional funding to serve the whole community. They are not for sale. If you find you fall in love with your loan cycle (and we hope you do), we would be happy to direct you towards reputable local dealerships. These cycles are not cheap and we understand cost will be a barrier to many. You may find good deals second hand. While we cannot provide financial support ourselves, please find a helpful list of funding ideas below: https://cyclingforall.org/cycles/funding/funding-your-bike/

While we recognise that 2 wheeled e-bikes can be a great option for many Disabled people, our focus at this time is on non-standard cycles that are not available on any other loan scheme. Consider mainstream schemes like Lime or Forest or Peddle My Wheels' 'Try Before you Bike Scheme instead. Alternatively, explore the 'Our Cycles' page to see what alternatives we offer.

Our partners, Peddle My Wheels have delivered hundreds of bikes via their concurrent Try Before You Bike program. We are delighted to have them on board to deliver our cycles straight to your doorstep, saving you the hassle of travel and transport. Once we have checked you are eligible and you and our Cycling Advisor have had a conversation and completed an application, Peddle My Wheels will be in touch and arrange logistics in order to bring out your cycle at a time and place that is convenient for you. They will spend some time demonstrating how everything works, give you some one-to-one guided cycling tuition, check that everything is safe, secure and suitable and then leave you to ensure your new freedom! When the loan period is over, they will similarly arrange to pick up your cycle directly from you

We are committed to doing our best to find the right cycle for you. This often means that our process takes quite a bit of time and a lot of back and forth before a cycle gets into your hands. The intention of this is to ensure that, before we leave you with a cycle that is unsuitable, or you cannot use for any reason, we have eliminated as many potential prroblems as possible. This includes our eligibility check and all the questions you and our Cycle Advisor will discuss before you complete an application. We also highly encourage all potential applicants to attend one of our regular cycle sessions (https://wheelsforwellbeing.org.uk/cycling-sessions/) or a similar local provision to get real life experience of these cycles, including potential for a led ride on roads. Further checks will be conducted at handover and bespoke guidance given by our expert delivery team who will spend up to two hours ensuring you are comfortable with your cycle and are able to store and care for it. Despite all this, however, we understand there are many reasons a loan may not work out, be it a change of circumstances or just that you the reality isn't what you expected. Nothing will match real world experience and that's the great thing about our loan scheme. In this instance, just get straight back in contact with us, we will have a chat about what went wrong and arrange to pick up your cycle. If both parties feel there is another option we might be able to provide that suits you better, we can arrange an alternate loan

Our cycles belong specifically to our loan scheme, and were purchased on conditional funding to serve the whole community. They are not for sale. If you find you fall in love with your loan cycle (and we hope you do), we would be happy to direct you towards reputable local dealerships. These cycles are not cheap and we understand cost will be a barrier to many. You may find good deals second hand. While we cannot provide financial support ourselves, please find a helpful list of funding ideas below: https://cyclingforall.org/cycles/funding/funding-your-bike/ Our dream is to one day exist in a world with national, inclusive subsidised cycle schemes and this is one step towards that. We will continue to campaign and the more demand we can demonstrate through schemes such as this, testimonies from people like you and your voices telling the world what you want, the more chance we have of making that a reality. You can get a car or mobility scooter if you meet certain criteria, why not a cycle?

The Wheels 4 Me program is a brand-new initiative and it is starting off small, building from scratch a library of inclusive cycles that we hope will meet a range of needs. In addition, we are constantly adding to our fleet and knowledge. We're not experts yet but we'll always do our best to find solutions and have some budget to add new and increased numbers of certain cycles if we can demonstrate demand. With the help of our fabulous mechanics and some of the many great aids on the market, we also have reasonable scope to provide support and adaptations to existing cycles. Not all of these will be listed on our website so please do get in touch to discuss your needs. Perhaps you could be the one to initiate a new option on offer!

A standard loan period runs for about a month. This allows us to best manage the logistics of preparing and getting our cycles out to you across London but, more importantly, gives you a good amount of time to get to know your cycle, find out what works and doesn't work, explore new cycle opportunities and really find out if you would benefit from owning something similar in the future. If you demonstrate a real need or desire to spend more time with your cycle our loan period may be negotiable up to two months (remember there might be several other people in the queue behind you!). Similarly, if a shorter period is all that is practical or you need to end a loan sooner for whatever reason, get in touch to negotiate a slightly shorter time scale. Generally, short loans like weekends are not possible. You may be able to pay to hire a cycle for specific events or purposes through Wheels for Wellbeing separately if you meet specific criteria and collect and return cycles yourself.

It’s up to you! You can ride in a local park or quiet neighbourhood, or you can explore the city using London’s cycle network. It’s a good idea to do a little research and planning if you intend to head off somewhere new; even the most experienced riders do this. You can also talk about where to ride when you collect the cycle from our member of staff (or when we deliver it to you).