Next bike bus is on 4th October!
Over 5 years ago, the inaugural JGPS bike bus held on the 22nd March 2019 was a rip-roaring success, with 162 people taking part, and we are still going strong!
Next bike bus
If you are new to the bike bus or are not sure your child will manage the hills, we would love to see you but would ask that you accompany your child in case of mechanical incident (for example) – we cannot, unfortunately, guarantee someone will be available to accompany children who fall behind the group for whatever reason. We will, of course, do everything we can to help everyone along and encourage very strongly that the group stays together.
Please make sure you read our guidelines for taking part in the bike bus.
The next date is the 4th of October but please check back here or on our twitter to confirm. We will be updating we new dates after half term.
The last nine bike buses had roughly 120-140 taking part in each and were all great successes. We were lucky enough to have excellent photographer Andy Catlin join us for the one on the 17th June who took some amazing photos – please click on the image below to preview the whole album or to purchase individual photos.
We start at 8:20, congregating at the junction with Charterhall Road and Blackford Avenue. We aim to get to school for 8:40.
We following the road shown on this map – please click to see the route in detail.
If your child is attending the bike bus please also attend with them, as it is important in the event of an accident or mechanical failure that someone can stop and help.
There is no formal procedure for joining in en route, but try to find a space to filter in or start riding at the front of the bus when you see it and let the leaders catch you up and allow the existing bike bus subsume you!
For confident parent cyclists who have children who are doing well it is really helpful to be aware that at certain points – for example the junction of South Oswald road and Oswald road, we should block the traffic and allow the children to pass safely. Please thank drivers who stop for us, but do not put yourself in danger if a driver becomes impatient. If necessary we will stop the bus to allow them past but in our experience most drivers are very happy to see the kids passing by and in general they will be delayed by no longer than a minute or so. We are lucky enough sometimes to have the police as you can see on this video:
The Astley Ainslie staff are kindly opening the North gate and waiting at some potentially tricky junctions. Please thank them too as you go past. Finally the council is overriding the signals at Whitehouse Loan crossing Strathearn Road – please also if you get a chance thank the council worker here and thank the cars for waiting.
The entire bike bus can be seen on this video from the ride on the 3rd May – this should give a good idea of what it is like to those that are not aware:
The risk assessment for the route can be viewed here.
The second bike bus on the 3rd May was also a great success as can be seen from the video:
Here’s a “fly-past” from our excellent volunteer rear-marker Robert Gormley of the bike bus on the 17th May: