Reading Bike Hub

15/06/2026

Opening at 4pm this Wednesday because it’ our Head Mechanics sports day and lots of his important people are part of the hub.

14/06/2026

Bikes available this week :) pop in and have a try.

13/06/2026

We’re attending a climate emergency convergence tonight so will be opening a bit later tomorrow. Aiming for 12. :)

12/06/2026

Pop in and see work by and see what else deyotic has been planning.

06/06/2026

Thanks to we’re able to offer 6 FREE self guided repairs with parts sessions. First Saturday of the month :) pop in today!

And I’m so happy that our customers have come into learn skills themselves ❤️

04/06/2026

Community is amazing. B’s Umpah bought him a premium 2nd hand bike from ReBiked in Didcot who have just opened and we highly recommend. Through that connection we had a very special donation of bikes from their founder of bikes they won’t sell to join our free bike library.

Similar ethos, awesome people trying to get more folks cycling. They also have a similar aged, similar height member of the team to B who had a great play date.

04/06/2026

Other people may think a microfilm cabinet is obsolete, we think it’s perfect for storing fiddly bike bits. Thanks to and for helping us rehome some of the library furniture.

02/06/2026

We're 9 months into our incredible journey with the hub, and it's been so much more than we've ever dreamed. But as our peppercorn rent agreement is coming to an end and we want to achieve so much more we're reaching out to you, our community to be part of financially supporting us too.

p.s I am very aware we need more, better photos of what the hub looks like now.

After an amazing 9 months at the Hub and it's become so much more than we dreamed to continue we need to work with our community to fund it

01/06/2026

The argument against bike lanes is usually about cost. The evidence increasingly says that argument has it backwards.

A report from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, supported by the FIA Foundation, found that networks of protected bicycle lanes can be remarkably cost-effective. In the cities it studied, these networks created more economic value each year than they cost to build, paying for themselves in under a year once you account for transport savings and the health benefits of more people exercising. On that measure they outperformed far more expensive projects, including metro rail.

The safety case is just as strong. One of the most comprehensive studies of road safety, led by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver, found that it was not the number of cyclists that made a city safer, but the infrastructure built for them. Separated, protected lanes were linked to fewer fatalities for all road users, not only those on bikes.

The type of lane matters enormously. Research from Canadian cities including Toronto and Vancouver found that physically separated cycle tracks were far safer than painted lanes, and far better at convincing hesitant people to ride in the first place. Paint on the road, it turns out, does relatively little. A kerb or a row of bollards does a great deal.

Put together, the picture is hard to argue with. Protected lanes save lives, cut emissions, ease congestion, and often return their cost within a year. For cities still treating them as a luxury or a nuisance, the data suggests they are one of the best value investments a transport budget can make.