About Sustaining Dunbar’s Dr Bike

Who is Dr Bike?
Dr Bike is a Sustaining Dunbar project which aims to help you get your bike out of the shed and back on the road. We are a team of cycle enthusiasts (Dan Waters, Mark James, Ray Bill, Rowena Blair and Colin Combe) who can give your bike a quick safety check and undertake basic adjustments to gears, brakes, bearings, chains etc.

What does Dr Bike do?                                                   Dr Bike will carry out a check of your bike,  running through a checklist, and discuss it with you. They can also help you to pump up your tyres, make adjustments to set your seat-height, brakes, gears etc. but they won’t supply any parts. Each bike check takes around 5-15 minutes, and if more work or parts are needed we will let you know. At the end of the check we will give you a Dr Bike Prescription to show what’s been done and what further work is required. You can take the prescription with you to the local bike shop.

You learn how your bike works, so you feel more confident about keeping your bike in good running order yourself.

Dr Bike can also give advice on

• Looking after your bike, cleaning and lubrication
• Cycle equipment (helmets, baskets, child-trailers etc)
• Cycle training
• Cycling maps/ routes in East Lothian and beyond
• Bike2Work (get a bike through your employer and save up to 42%)
• Other Sustaining Dunbar cycling projects

Does Dr Bike fix my bike?
They will check that it is safe to ride and free up the brakes, straighten the seat or oil the chain – that type of thing. If anything more is needed they will refer you to a bike shop. Basically they do the sort of checks that you should really be doing yourself every couple of weeks. They can show you how to do these checks for yourself. Visit Sustrans’s website for more details on how to keep your bike in a roadworthy condition.

Could I learn to do it myself?
Certainly. Dr Bike runs classes where you can Learn-to-look-after-your-bike.

They are informal and free if you sign up to the Household Canny Project.

How are you funded?
Dr Bike is an ongoing Sustaining Dunbar project. Daniel Waters is currently employed part time by Sustaining Dunbar (thanks to the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund) to co-ordinate this project and others which will encouraging cycling and make it easier to use bikes for local transport. The Dr Bike project aims to get bikes out of sheds and onto the streets and to give people the skills they need to keep their bikes in good order.

HQ 
The shipping container which we have used as a base was paid for by the Climate Challenge Fund in 2011 , and the Weldtech Training was provided by Cycling Scotland’s Cycle Friendly Communities Fund in 2011. This fund also provided 30x£25 cycle vouchers for local people to spend on bikes and accessories in return for a commitment to cycle more. (more info)

All our Dr Bike mechanics hold a Weldtech Gold qualification.