About Us

Sunderland Young Peoples Bike Project was originally named "North Side Young People’s Bike Project" and was set up in April 2002 when Area Coordinators; Casandra O’Neil, Tony Semley, and Steve Rylance tabled a cycling club proposal to Sunderland's Youth Service.

The proposal was to set up an exciting new cycling initiative, initially for young people in the North of Sunderland. The project started with 12 ageing, but useable mountain bikes left by a past project and an inherited trailer to carry 12 bikes. And with that - a cycle project was born!

Some funding was secured to kick start the project with a number of cycling activities and challenges such as the C2C and the W2W. The project grew from strenght to strength and became popular with young people in the community. As such more partnerships were forged and more funding came in to expand the projects service across the City, not just the North.

As the project continued to developed and become popular, in 2009 it was decided to transition the project intoan independent Community Interest Company.   

The project decided then to change its name  to become "Sunderland Young Peoples Bike Project" (SYPBP) to be inclusive of everyone in the City, not just the North.  

This name was chosen by a committee of young people from Blue Watch Youth Centre, where the project was initially based. 

On 31st March 2009, Sunderland Young People’s Bike Project became its own company and registered as a CIC (06864603). 

From this date SYPBP has worked with a number of Local Authorities, funders and organisations to deliver many cycling programmes and training. 

On the 16th December 2009, SYPBP was successful becoming a Bikeability training provider (Registration Number 704209A) and at the time became the sole provider of the newly formed Bikeability. We later assisted Sunderland Council to achieve the same accreditation and have worked in partnership ever since to deliver Bikeability across Sunderland.  

SYPBP is passionate about cycling and we see Bikeability as the cornerstone to our engagement with young people and our aspirations to create a cycling culture across the whole community.

In 2005 Sunderland Young people’s Bike Project found a permanent home with Blue Watch Youth Centre (Ryhope). Where the innovative project offered an assortment of challenging outdoor activities and new experiences for young people aged primarily 8-21 years old. Benefiting from a fully resourced permanent base, the project supported young people with their participation in the Mayor’s and Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards, Key Fund, Safe Cycle Assessments, AQA Units in Mountain Biking and Young Achiever Awards.   

In July 2017 Sunderland Young people’s Bike Project became independent from Blue Watch Youth Centre in Ryhope and found it own headquarters and storage units in Thompson Park. Our Head office is located in the Café within the Park, 179 Newcastle road.  We have a workshop and fleet storage units based within Home Grown Garden Centre, situated in the middle of Thompson Park. 

In April 2022 in partnership with sunderland Council and British Cycling, we had a bespoke cycle skills area built in the park where we are able to provide cycle sessions and host events.