The City of Edinburgh has many advantages for cyclists that other cities can be envy about. Vast network of cycle paths, good maintenance, and plenty services with volunteers ready to help you to start your journey with bicycles.

One of the good things in the city for people who search for affordable bicycle as well as those ones who want to upgrade their two wheeler to new one and do not know what to do with old one there is Bike Station.

Bike Station is an idea to provide the service to refurbish old donated bikes into maybe not perfect but cheap second-hand ones. Bike Station started their business in late nineties as a swap shop for child bikes. Since then the popularity constantly increases. They have their name from a facility that they rented that was in a Edinburgh Waverley Railway Station basement. Now they have three shops in Edinburgh Perth and Glasgow and recycle over 10.000 bikes per year. Nevertheless, the demand for second-hand bicycles is still high as well as supply of donated ones to be recycled. The initiatives like that, help to popularize cycling and make it accessible for everyone increasing cycle friendly environment in Scotland. (BikeStation, no date)

Students and among them Edinburgh College students have also additional privileges. Every Edinburgh College Campus has secure bicycle parking. You just need to apply (send an email to: sustainability@edinburghcollege.ac.uk) for your personal PIN code to access them as long as you study. Every secure store has bike tools to use nearby. Edinburgh College Sustainability at the beginning of every academic year organizes Dr Bike sessions for free bike safety check up. ECSA (Edinburgh College Student Association) also offer free, one-to-one cycle training, suitable for all levels. Even one hour of training can help you improve your confidence cycling on the road. You need to email go.green@ecsa.scot to arrange a session. Apart from that, GoGreen project among many initiatives they do, they send Lights/Hi-Vis packs. All you need to do is to send them an email and provide a feedback. The idea is to encourage people to use bicycles to commute to their Campus and by doing that reduce the carbon emission and by that have impact on global warming effect. ECSA has been awarded over £190,000 as part of the Scottish Government's Climate Challenge Fund (CCF). (Edincoll, 2019; ECSA, no date)

The attitude to cycling investments changes not only in Scotland but in whole UK. British government announced in April 2017 a long scale cycling support plan. As part of this government introduced Cycle to Work Scheme – a variety of loans and financial help for those who will decide to take part in the project and offer cycling for their employees as a way to commute to work. The government’s ambition is to make cycling and walking a natural choice for shorter journeys, or as part of longer journeys by 2040. (Departament For Transport, 2017)

For those ones who still hesitate there is an incentive in a form of a £50 vouchers available for those who need to repair their bicycle. All you need to do is to go to the bike service that participate in this government program and ask for repair, and that you want to take part in the ‘Fix Your Bike’ voucher scheme. Main bicycle sellers like Evens Cycles and Halfords participate in that. It is worth to mention that some of these shops often offer discounts or trade ins like exchanging your old bicycle for a new one with the lower price. (Ballinger,2021)