We love cycles and we love people’s cycle stories. Our Staff and Trustees share our passion, and we wanted to share it with you too! Our Cycle Stories is a new blog series devoted to introducing you to our wonderful team, and the diverse and varied ways that cycling has become an enriching part of their lives.

What is your name, and what do you do at Wheels for Wellbeing?

 My name is Ben Foley, and I’m a Campaigns and Policy Lead – getting my teeth into the juicy policy, campaigning and advocacy side of our work!

What has been your career trajectory; how did you come to end up working at WfW?

After a first degree in politics and a PhD in moral and political theory, I was more than 20 years as an academic, working on computing and social responsibility (in a faculty of technology!). Occasionally within that I found excuses to include stuff about accessibility or transport issues, but not as often as I would have liked.

For all of that time I was also a campaigner, becoming in due course chair of the Disabled staff group, campaigning on rail accessibility, and I was a regular cyclist too. I left academia and got a job in the campaigns sector in 2018, and then was elected as a local councillor in 2019, but joining WfW in 2022 was my first long-term job in the campaigns sector.

Do you use a cycle? What/how/where?

I don’t use a cycle anything like as much as I would like. I was fortunate enough when I bought my flat to be able to buy somewhere with enough space to store a standard bicycle and my folding Brompton, but using them for practical journeys is constrained by my very limited ability to walk when I get off, so I really need a wheelchair at the far end of any journey.

I’m fortunate to also have (and have space for) a cycle trailer but getting it in and out of my flat is a pain, as is loading and unloading the wheelchair. So cycling tends to be used for journeys of between about 1 and 5 miles, and the rare journey where I know I won’t need to walk more than a couple of metres from the cycle parking to where I sit at my destination. Once the weather improves, the journeys of between about 1 and 5 miles are likely to include going to my favourite wild swimming spot (but I’m a wimp and only wild swim when the water is warm).

What does cycling mean to you, and your overall wellbeing?

At the moment, it’s more a source of frustration at missed opportunities to get cycling than anything else: “if only I could get myself set up better” (whether with a hand cycle or a way of towing my wheelchair without needing to load and unload from the trailer).

Do you have a favourite session, route, or adventure?

I guess going out to my wild swimming spot!

Is there anything that you think WfW does better than anyone else?

My colleagues in the Campaigns and Policy team produce guides to infrastructure, existing policy, issues of language and other related issues that are rightly getting great credit from long-standing professionals in related fields. I am very proud to be able to contribute to this work.

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in #ActiveTravel #InclusiveCycling to benefit Disabled people, their mobility, and their wellbeing?

Get recognition at all levels that Disabled people use a much wider range of mobility aids than are currently recognised, and thus that there needs to be funding and provision for that wider range of mobility aids- rather than a danger of sanctions for not being “properly” disabled. I’m hoping it won’t need a magic wand; trying to bring about that change is my job! 

Thank you for sharing your Cycle Story with us, Ben!