Clouds electric bike

Hi

My name is Cloud and I have started this crowdfunder in the hopes of a little help towards the cost of buying an electric bike to help me travel to work, run errands and see friends and family, generald grown up independance things.

There are so many reasons travelling by any bike is great, it's amazing for the environment and your personal health and wellbeing, for myself it has added weight to it as I can not drive a car anymore due to suffering with PTSD.

An electric bike however in my hilly and rural community is ideal as it means that I can genuinely commute to work or do some shopping but without the punishing uphill struggles inevitably involved due to our stunning but often steep landscape.

I'm now going to put in a trigger warning as some further details might be upsetting to certain people.

I'm a 32 year old mother of three, living in a very isolated rural community in the hills of Wales, four years ago while driving my two youngest children to school we were involved in a car crash resulting in the death of my eleven year son Tristan. Since Tristan's death I have found it impossible to drive a car, I tried doing my CBT test for a scooter thinking this might be a solution but found again that there was simply to much trauma involved and the instructor wouldn't even let me on the road as I was not in a safe and fit state to travel with other traffic.

So I have lived an increasingly isolated life while relying on my husband to drive me places which is difficult as he works full time and I find even being a passenger in a car causes me considerable distress. As a consequence my life is so limited, I can't even go out to get milk let alone get myself to a doctor's appointment or see my parents and visit my son's grave. I struggle with depression as a result of this enforced isolation and feel powerless to improve my situation a lot of the time.

I have been riding a standard pedal bike to get my youngest child River to and from their bus stop for many years now, I found it the least upsetting and fastest method despite some nervousness to begin with. I found I could travel a fair distance, managing to even cycle to one of my clients who is four miles away but often dreaded the return journeys and with our nearest town being seven miles away, up several long and steep hills, the time it would take and the physical fitness required made it feel impossible. This is not to say I'm unfit but as anyone from Wales will know our beautiful hills can be grueling and I often take longer back road routes as I am still not capable of joining traffic on the main A roads as this is to triggering for me and in general, as most cyclists might agree, not the safest option.

But to bring the story to a better more hopefull conclusion I was recently encouraged by a very supportive client of mine, who saw me trying to make the best of this situation but struggling none the less, to get in touch with Sustrans Wales, a sustainable transport network of lovely enthusiastic people trying to make Wales a more bike friendly place for all and more of the reasons I have already spoken about. Sustrans member Sioned spoke to me over email and secured the loan of an electric bike for me, a wonderful gift I can not express fully in words. I could suddenly and easily do so many things on my own when I needed to and without feeling unsafe or overly reliant on others. I could get to and from work and could even take on jobs further afield. I was able to do shopping and use local shops for the first time in years, get myself to appointments such as the dentist and see my family and friends more, all of which has improved my mental health considerably. I could even ride the twenty miles to visit my parents and Tristan whenever I wanted even in the depth of winter as the electric bike halved the time these journeys would otherwise have taken. I feel for the first time since the accident like I have the freedom and capability to improve my life and although there is no moving on from my grief I am in a better position to accept it and live with it. I can not thank Sustrans Wales and Sioned enough for these things.

This is only one story and I know the are so many others struggling in our rural communities due to isolation, we have seen public transport degrade over many years, where it existed at all, which sadly for lots of outlying communities it never even was an option. Our nearest bus stop is two and a half miles away and only has five buses a day. We have older people unable to leave their homes without help which is sorely lacking and young people like my children struggling to access facilities and normal things like seeing friends and joining after school clubs as the travel involved is just not possible. Electric bikes have a real and life changing role to play in these situations and I encourage anyone who finds themselves or someone they know suffering in this way to contact Sustrans Wales. These bikes however are only loans, they are great but need to be passed on to others in need after six weeks or so and I like many others am now faced with the prospect of no bike or finding the large sum of money required to buy a bike of my own. I wish there was help with this but due to being self employed there seems to be no other way than funding the costs myself, or so I thought. Again the wonderful Sioned suggested an alternative which is this crowdfunder, I'm don't feel entirely comfortable asking for help from others especially given everyone's struggles since Covid 19 and the general state of the nation, but now without my bike I can feel my situation reverting and the trapped feelings and difficulties returning. So please, if possible and only if you feel you can, donate a small amount towards this gofundme or indeed to Sustrans itself as access to a bike can be access to so much more for a lot of people. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this very long story and I wish everyone a better 2022.