Peter Jones

Where it all began:-

Watching Sir David Attenborough programmes at home – he is a man who has seen more of the natural world than any other and his documentaries about our planet and the effect of plastic pollution in our oceans and more recently Prince Williams’ programme – Earth Shot – recognising and rewarding people who protect nature and our environment has had a huge impact on how I view the world and I really want to do my bit and whatever I can to support our planet for our future and generations to follow.

I have been lucky enough to have been part of the cycling community and cycling trade for 16 years and in that time have seen changes within the industry striving to support our planet.  For example, a key brand within our store at County Cycles are Trek Bikes – the owner of Trek, John Burke is a great advocate of sustainability and together with the support of the Trek staff, in  2020  they conducted an audit to measure their emissions so they could understand their impact and build a plan to become more sustainable and conscious about what is happening around this issue globally.

To date, Trek has removed 19,6680 KG of plastic waste from their packaging since 2020 and have measured that if you bought a Trek bike for example a Marlin 5 and cycled 430 miles instead of using your car for these journeys you would save the carbon equivalent of what it took to make your bike. As a global player within the cycle industry, they are looking at introducing shipping strategies as well as consolidating deliveries within the UK to save transport emissions.

Cycling with our County Cycles group one day I started to think about sustainability within our own business and what we could do to contribute towards it prompted also by a poster in our store from Trek that reads:- ”The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it!” -Robert Swan

SO WHAT IS HAPPENING IN COUNTY ALREADY?

*Supporting the Muc-Off campaign to reduce plastic bottles by providing a refill station – this will help save the production of 54,000 plastic bottles – that is 6 tons of plastic!! the refill station saves 94% on the packaging.

*Velorim – (Making cycling green)- we have teamed up to become a collection point for used tyres and inner tubes – you can bring them in to store and we arrange collection for them to be re-cycled and NOT put into landfill.

*Urge helmets – The first priority with this brand is to integrate with the environment and their full range is manufactured with at least 80% of recycled materials

*recycling of metal – projects with youth workers to re-use bicycle parts – we have seen very effective use of chains, spokes etc to make table mats, jewellery, wall art and even a coffee table out of old wheels along with our very own bespoke Christmas tree purely out of bits of waste from the workshop – whatever can’t be used is separated into its own re-cycling skip and collected for recycling

So its a start, but we don’t want to stop there – so –

WHAT’S TO COME?

*Our popular MERLIN RIDE -due on 10th April 2022, a choice of 160 or 60-mile sportive organised by us with a donation towards planting trees to help our environment.

*RUBBISH RIDE – exactly what it says on the tin  – organising cycle rides quarterly from County Cycles along the Sustrans cycle tracks collecting rubbish as we ride.

*Regular meetings with our team to keep sustainability at the forefront of our working days – the whole team here are committed to doing our bit for sustainability and protecting the environment we all love and more importantly need.

My aim is to be able to look back in 2023 to see what we have contributed and to be proud of the County Cycles team being involved in making our future more sustainable and reducing carbon emissions – we really do want to help 

– Peter Jones