Help a Fen afford a cargo bike

update: wow wow I can't believe how quickly the 1500 goal was reached! Thanks so much I am truly so amazed and grateful!

I am ordering the frame very soon in the wonderful shimmery blurple colour and am currently working on component lists. Which is why I have raised the goal by £300! No pressure to meet it (I don't want to be greedy) but anything above my original goal will mean I can get a bit better (and longer lasting) components, and nice bike tools for building it properly. Thanks so much if anyone can contribute. I'm so incredibly amazed by the power and generosity of this community ❤️

Hi, I'm Fen (you might know me as Non Verbal Poetry).

I'm trans, and have ADHD and autism, which have meant I have not been able to keep (or these days even find or maintain) a job. I am supported by my also autistic, also trans partner who is able to work just enough to keep us alive, but not much more.

Neither of us drive (and couldn't afford to run a car even if we did) and we live in the rural outskirts of Glasgow in an area where all public infrastructure assumes you have a car. Not having transport means a number of things in our life are more expensive, or take more spoons than they should.

This is where a cargo bike comes in. Having a cargo bike would allow me to do a weekly grocery shop at the much cheaper store in town, rather than ordering groceries for delivery from more expensive supermarkets, and being able to do the same for the hardware store every time the boat we live on needs fixing.

Being able to make these trips on the day we run out of food, medication, or find a new leak, would make the difference between having to live in discomfort for 3-5 days while waiting for delivery, and being able to address these problems instantly.

Having this bike will also mean I can more easily visit friends and community in nearby cities, avoiding an expensive train ride and the discomfort and danger of being visibly trans on (in this country, often rowdy) public transport.

The bike I am looking at is an omnium cargo, which is the cheapest and most capable cargo bike I have come across. This bike, being front loading, means I can also transport my medium/large dog, letting her go for walks in more than just the same trail reachable on foot every day. It is also one of the few cargo bikes that can fit off road tyres, making use of some of the dirt tracks around where I live, connecting towns while avoiding the more dangerous roads.

If I reach the funding goal I will be able to buy the frame, and with the help of bike co-op parts bins, scrounge together the parts to build it up myself, saving £1000 on having to buy it pre-built. I am lucky as a transfem person that growing up I was taught how to work on bikes!

Anyway, thanks for reading this, honestly, ramble, and hopefully thanks for donating whatever you were able to - I really appreciate it and promise this will be a significant quality of life improvement for me and my partner!