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Meet The Team
Our team is a dedicated bunch of people who work together to deliver Free Ride services. We contract some of these roles, but most of the Free Ride team are volunteers. We are always looking for more good people to help us in the workshop or behind the scenes, get in touch with below if you are interested in becoming a volunteer.
Ross Bailey
Head Mechanic
Ross is highly experienced as a mechanic and we are lucky to have him. he ensures work is done to the best quality.
Hannah Mitchell
Coordinator
Hannah is the coordinator of all our programmes, admin and volunteers. She also is Pedal Ready trained and works with Isabelle on Whānau Bike Skills and E-Bike rides.
Martin Warr
Community Mechanic
Martin is an experienced mechanic with a passion for community, Martin works as a mechanic, as well as teaching our mechanic classes and youth sessions.
Eric
Community Mechanic
Eric is a hardcore mountain biker, and has been riding bikes and fixing them for a long time. Eric used to help out with bikes at The Mower Shop.
Tom
Community Mechanic
Tom is a very capable mechanic, who's skills are growing rapidly. He loves to try new things and he's built his own e-bike and loves to ride it.
Lily Chalmers
Founder & Chair
Lily is a community developer and social innovator who loves her community and founded Free Ride as a way to reduce the barriers to bike riding. Lily is the chair of the board.
Isabelle
Ride & Training Lead
Isabelle, our amazing ride leader is Pedal Ready trained to the highest level and has a lot of experience teaching, and leading rides.
Chris Duthie-Jung
Community Mechanic
Chris is an experienced and passionate mechanic who is great helping people get their bikes rideable, and has a passion for silly and weird bikes.
“Transport equity is a key focus for Healthy Families Hutt Valley. Increasing access and the use of low carbon, low cost transport options, like bikes, is great for our whānau and our environment."
Media links
"Hard infrastructure needs to be backed up with initiatives that encourage and enable cycling, particularly in areas where people otherwise wouldn’t have the means to get themselves mobile."
“The benefits of Free Ride are more open access to cycling and being part of a community of cyclists.”
volunteer with us
Join us in serving our community to support more riders
About Free Ride Charitable Trust
Free Ride is a charitable trust set up to increase bike riding for transportation, recreation and fitness. The trust aims to provide services and support for riders in Lower Hutt in the aims of increasing access to cycling.
Charities number CC61653
The trustees are:
Lily Chalmers
Martin Warr
Cr Simon Edwards
Free Ride operates a membership which anyone can sign up to, to get access to free and discounted services to reduce barriers to cycling. We are funded by Hutt City Council, Waka Kotahi, and the donations and koha of our members and supporters.
Our free services include:
Free bikes
Free kids bike fixing
Free fix ups in our community
Free bike skills courses
Free mechanic mentoring in our workshop.
Access to an E-bike library.
Free Ride currently operates the Free Ride Workshop at The Naenae Park Pavillion, Gibson Crescent, Naenae . We also do a range of more mobile programmes, see our landing page for our events and dates.
Bike services for koha
We have limited capacity to fix and service bikes on Saturdays, so if you agree to leave your bike, it might take a couple of weeks to get it back, depending on availability of parts and labour.
Payment
We are working on becoming a sustainable social enterprise. We have free options available, and we have paid services. We offer an affordable bike service price, and paid e-bike group rides for those people who can afford to pay to support our charity.
We ask for a donation on a sliding scale for bike services, we will give you the parts cost and labour cost and you can pay what you can. This can vary from a standard bike service and check to more complex fixes and parts replacement. We are very flexible and can always come to an arrangement if you can't pay then and there.
If you have any questions, please ask. Mostly we are figuring this out to make things work best for our community.
Our supporters
Thanks to those sponsors, partners and funders who enable us to do this mahi.
Our awards
