Grass Roots
Grass Roots
At Roots, we’re passionate about making cycling accessible to anyone who wants to get on a bike. We value and support cycling at all levels and understand on a personal level just how important cycling can be for your mental health as well as your physical well-being. Add to this the environmental benefits of commuting by bike, and it’s clear that the bicycle is a transformative vehicle.
To help make cycling more accessible within our local community, we’ve made and continue to develop great relationships with a variety of local groups, clubs, and individuals. Read on to learn more.
The Adaptive Riders Collective is a community interest company. Its core goal of making off-road adaptive cycling available to more people and to build a community focussed on access, inclusion, and integration to the mainstream cycling world. Roots is proud to support the Collective and their endeavours. We’ve done some really interesting projects with handcycles, helping to make them as tough as possible for Scotland’s terrain (and weather).
Dunblane Bike Club
Roots is proud to support the recently formed Dunblane Bike Club. A fun and friendly club for recreational riders, the focus is shared equally between the rides themselves and the social side of riding. The aim of the club is for local cyclists to meet and enjoy shared cycling experiences.
Dunblane Bike Club held its first event, a Gravel Race, on 25th August 2024. The rain and wind didn’t stop it from being a brilliant event, enjoyed by riders and spectators alike. We’re looking forward to supporting the next event and will be regulars on the weekend club rides.
If you’d like to learn more, sign up for a ride, or join the club, please contact: dunblanebikeclub@outlook.com
Doune Community
As a shop situated in Doune, we are proud to work with a number of groups in the community – the ‘Wee Bike Crew’ at Doune Primary School, the Doune & Deanston Youth Project, Doune Gala and Doune Christmas Gala. We recently undertook a collaboration with the Kilmadock Development Trust, Sustrans and Stirling Council to bring a bicycle maintenance stand to Moray Park in Doune. Situated at the end of the Sustrans National Cycle Network, Route 765, the stand allows cyclists to make minor repairs to their bikes or to inflate their tyres. The stand is well-used and is maintained by ourselves – if you see anything on the stand that needs attention, please let us know.
Fleet Bikes
We offer the sale and maintenance of fleet bicycles to schools and charities at a discount to encourage the development and accessibility of cycling for all. Local schools and charities we work with include Doune & Deanston Youth Project, Camphill Blair Drummond Community, Dunblane High School and Clackmannanshire Schools Support Service.
Maintenance Classes
We are happy to offer free maintenance classes to groups and charities, such as school pupils working towards their Duke of Edinburgh Award, the Cubs, Scouts, Beavers and Brownies, and local youth clubs and charities.
I was introduced to sports through my family and started out with swimming and cycling. I quickly progressed and joined a swimming club which allowed me to take part in regular local galas. I also really enjoyed family days out on the bikes, and through this discovered mountain biking which is now one of my favourite disciplines.
Coming from a multidisciplinary family, it wasn’t long until I was signed up for a summer camp with the Stirling Triathlon Club which is where I first started triathlon. I tagged along with my brother at first and soon became a regular when I was about 13 or 14. I already had experience in swimming and cycling so the addition of running was a nice balance to my weekly activities.
I continued to train and compete where possible through school and tried out varying forms of triathlon including cross-tri (where the cycling element is through trails on a mountain bike) and sprints (where the cycling element is road cycling.) Continuous training and exposure to competitions allowed me to compete globally for Great Britain’s Age Group Team.
Since graduating from university, triathlon has been a larger focus of mine. In the last year, I’ve been able to qualify and compete in Scotland, England and further afield in Europe through GB events and more recently X-Terra events. I’d love to continue and compete with X-Terra or maybe branch into longer races within cross-tri.
Roots have supported me since my first global competition in 2018 and continue to do so today. They’re a great support and continue to help out where they can which means the world to me and my sporting career.
Roots Ambassador Luke Bradley
I’ve been riding bikes as a hobby since I was 9, and started racing when I was 13. Growing up in the Peak District, I had miles of trails on my doorstep and ended up with a real love of nature and riding a bike in it. That love of nature, adventure and the outdoors eventually led me to Scotland to become an environmental geologist nearly 18 years ago.
I love riding bikes of any kind, but my real love is riding off-road. I particularly like stuff on the extremes and fringes of mountain biking – dragging my bike up Munros and round endurance XC races. I’m not naturally sporty so I have to work hard to be race fit, but I never lose sight of why I do this – because riding bikes is really, really good fun.
I’ve been lucky enough to stand on the podium at events like Ten Under the Ben, the Strathpuffer and Glentress 7 a few times, and at races in the US and Europe. I’ve also taken my bike up 75 of the Munros, and over 150 mountains throughout the world and featured in MBR, MBUK and Singletrack magazine, even getting on the cover once!
I volunteer for a charity called Bikes for Refugees. They give out bikes to people who have arrived in Scotland having fled wars in their own country. Bikes let them get around for free, improve their mental health and become part of the local community. Roots donated some bikes to the charity last year and I thought that this kind, friendly and helpful bike shop was one I’d like to represent.
I’ve worn the Roots jersey at races and people always come up to me and say how nice the team at Roots are, something that’s never happened to me in my old shop teams. I’m really proud to race for such a great bunch of people. I’ve got a Trek X-Caliber hardtail for racing that handles vast amounts of abuse and terrible conditions really nicely!