Yate Community Bike Hub

YATE Community Bike Hub’s Bank Holiday Coronation ride ended appropriately enough at Kingsgate Park.

Even though the weather ran true to form for a bank holiday Monday, nevertheless some 40 or so participants joined in the celebrations of this unique event.

A selection of the participants are shown at an appropriately respectful distance behind the new park feature, a large fallen tree trunk which has just been sculpted by Andy O’Neill.

Before ending up at Kingsgate Park, Rebecca Bennett, third from the left in the photo, had led the group on a 14km tour around Yate, passing places with links to the monarchy, including Windsor Drive, Mountbatten Close, Cornwall Crescent, Kingscote, and both Charles Court and Charles Road.

Of course, Yate already has its own statuesque carving, by the same local artist, of the King of Yate, which is topped with the crowned head of King Edmund to commemorate Yate’s origin as the gateway into what was once the King’s wood.

Once in the park, the riders were able to partake in the appetising food which had been provided from one of the King’s Coronation

Awards for such joyful celebratory activities.

The Community Hub, which is exists to promote cycling in Yate and district, and has a particular emphasis on giving bikes to local refugees and families in need, has just received encouraging news about their tenure of 12 South Walk in Yate Shopping Centre.

The centre management have just agreed the terms of a two-year lease, which removes the need for a relocation every three months - the practice for the first 12 months of their occupancy of vacant shop units. This allows the Hub Management Team to now pay serious attention to establishing the layout of the unit, which has gone from strength to strength, turning over an average of more than 120 donated bikes from each of the four different locations to which they were kindly granted free access to by the shopping centre management.

You can follow the Hub’s activities by contacting Yatecommunitybikehub@gmail.com.

Bob Keen