Who we are

Bikeworks was founded at a kitchen table in East London in 2006.

The first business plan was called Olympic Bikes. London had just won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and East London was being promised lasting change. The question that mattered most was who that change would be for.

Zoe Portlock and Jim Blakemore set out to use cycles as a practical tool for tackling inequality. Not simply as transport or sport, but as a way to open up physical activity, strengthen wellbeing and create stronger connections between people and place.

That idea became Bikeworks.

Two decades later Bikeworks is an award-winning social enterprise with roots in East London and reach across the capital and beyond. Over the past twenty years it has generated and invested more than £29 million into widening access to cycling and physical activity. Its work now reaches communities across London and contributes to national thinking on inclusive cycling, micro mobility and active travel.

The purpose has remained constant: to use cycles as a tool for good, opening up cycling and physical activity to people who have the least access and the most to gain.

Bikeworks operates as a social enterprise, combining trading activity with a clear social purpose.

Income generated through commercial work is invested into widening access to cycling and physical activity. This supports community programmes, specialist cycle fleets, instructor and mechanic development, and opportunities that many communities would otherwise not have.

This model allows Bikeworks to grow while staying focused on its purpose: using cycles as a practical tool to tackle inequality and open up access to physical activity.

Over the past twenty years Bikeworks has supported more than one million cycling experiences.

Behind that number are children learning to ride, disabled riders accessing physical activity in ways that work for them, families spending time together outdoors, older adults returning to cycling, and people living with long-term health conditions reconnecting with movement and outdoor space.

Through inclusive cycling clubs, cycle training, maintenance training, specialist cycle fleets and partnerships with boroughs, employers, health partners and community organisations, Bikeworks has steadily expanded what access to cycling can look like in London.

Today the organisation is recognised nationally for the role it plays in shaping more inclusive cycling and active travel, while remaining grounded in the communities where the work began.

Bikeworks was created in response to a moment of promise. East London was told the Olympic Games would leave a legacy.

For twenty years Bikeworks has worked to make that promise tangible, widening access to cycling and physical activity for people who might otherwise have been excluded from both.

At a time when inequalities in health, physical activity and access to public space remain stark, that work matters as much as ever.

Cycles remain the tool.
The purpose remains the same.

Open up cycling and physical activity to people who have the least access and the most to gain.