Reading Uni-Cycling Around
In May Kidical Mass ran a ride at the University of Reading’s community festival. Over 50 people joined us for a ride through the university site.
The campus is a great place to go riding with young children – there is very little traffic on the road, what traffic there is moves relatively slowly and many of the cycle routes are off road.
It’s a very safe place to learn to ride and indeed our youngest regular attendee, Blake (aged 3) has learned to ride there this Summer. It was a very easy route to marshal and made for a relaxed and enjoyable ride.
Kidical Mass Reading have other reasons to be grateful to the university too – earlier this year they awarded us a grant which has enabled us to continue running the rides with related activities alongside (including offering bike maintenance to ride attendees).
We were also very pleased to welcome university researchers from the CALM (Cleaner Air Living Matters) to our July ride. They rode with us and sought views from the grown-ups after the ride.
I particularly enjoyed appropriating some of the pavement chalk the children were using post ride to sketch out the new layout of Lower Henley Road and explain why it has made such a difference to our school run!
As part of their work, Dr Marta O’Brien and her team offer free assemblies and other resources to schools in Reading to help inform and empower students on these matters.
If you have children and you think they would benefit from this, please encourage their school to reach out – many schools in the Reading area have already taken advantage of the offer.
The next ride for Kidical Mass will be at 12pm from Reading Cycle Festival on Sunday 8 September – we hope to see many of you there!
Hilary Smart
