#SpokesComp 2025 : My Favourite Bike Ride
For our 2025 summer competition we’d like to hear about your favourite local bike ride, in Edinburgh and/or the Lothians. It may be a leisure ride, or your daily commute or perhaps the school ‘run’ with your kids.
In judging the competition, we want to know not just the route itself but, most of all, why this ride is so special to you. Hopefully your entry will entice or inspire other people to get on their bike and try the same or something similar.
So that the competition does not require technical skills, judging will be based on written entries. Your route should be fairly easy to describe, without too many intricate instructions, frequent turnings, etc. Photos and/or a sketch can be included and often help, but are not essential. You can also include electronic mapping if you wish, but this will not be included in the judging.
PRIZES
Top prizewinner gets first choice of prizes, and so on till all prizes allocated. Runner-up entries which don’t win a prize will get to choose a free Spokes map or buff
- Museum of Scottish Railways (Bo’Ness) Family annual pass to the extensive museum
- Bo’Ness & Kinneil Steam Railway Family ticket for one return trip
- Ember Bus [takes 2 bikes] £50 bus tickets credit
- Edinburgh Bicycle £50 Edinburgh Bicycle voucher
- Camera Obscura Family ticket
- Cameo Picturehouse Tickets for 2
- Laidback Bikes Recumbent tour or cargobike hire
- Harts Cyclery One-week ebike hire
- Edinburgh Festival of Cycling Urban Arrow Cargo-bike day hire
- Lanterne Rouge bike cafe, Gifford £20 voucher
- Lanterne Rouge bike cafe, Gifford Blue/white no-plastic Africap from Sierra Leone
- Spokes £1000 voucher* towards cargo-bike purchase
- Spokes £200 voucher* towards e-bike purchase
- Spokes Set of all 4 Spokes maps
- RUNNERS-UP Spokes map or Edinburgh map-buff
RULES
- The competition is open to all, but members of Spokes Resources Group can’t win prizes
- The competition closes on 7 September – entries will be judged soon after
- Each person can submit either 1 or 2 entries
- Your entry should hopefully inspire people to use a bike or to use it more often – but most important is to say why this ride is so special to you
- The ride must be in Edinburgh and/or the Lothians, and can be short or long – e.g it might just take 15 minutes, or a half day
- The ride must not need car transport but it can use rail for part of the trip.
- It can be suitable for novice and/or experienced cyclists
- You can, if you wish, include up to 4 photos and/or a sketch. Please if possible reduce any photos to around 1MB or less
- Paper entries by post rather than email are ok, but we will not return them
- We may try out routes before or after judging, before finalising the results
- So that we can easily compare entries, you must complete all the questions below, and judging will be on the basis of that
- If you wish also to send electronic mapping that is fine – e.g. we may use it if we try out the route
- Spokes may use some or all entries on our website, in our Bulletin, in other publications or in other ways. We would of course credit your name, unless you ask us not to. We may produce a booklet of prizewinning entries, like we did in 2015. By entering the competition you give Spokes permission to use your entry material in our ongoing campaigning and promotional work in these or other ways.
HOW TO ENTER
Copy and paste the details and questions below into a document or email, then enter your answers.
Send your completed email or document (and, optionally, photos and/or sketch) to competition@spokes.org.uk. For paper entries, post to our office address: Spokes, St Martins Centre, 232 Dalry Road, Edinburgh EH11 2JG.
0. Your details
- Your Name
- Address
- Postcode
- Phone number
- Are you a Spokes member? Yes / No [but entry is open to all, and this will not affect judging]
1. A name for your favourite ride in Edinburgh and/or the Lothians – e.g. Midlothian circular, or Dalry to Canonmills, or Portobello perambulation
2. Who is it suitable for? – it doesn’t need to suit everyone – indicate all that apply…
Families with young children / Experienced cyclists / Novice cyclists / Other – specify…
3. Where is the route located? – indicate all that apply …
Ed central / Ed north / Ed south / Ed east / Ed west / East Lothian / Midlothian / West Lothian
4. Brief description of route
a. Start point…
b. End point (or circular)…
c. Brief description…
5. Any interesting / useful / beautiful features / facilities en route
6. Why is this a favourite route of yours? … can be just a sentence, or max 500 words. Note that this question is important in the judging
Thanks for entering!! Now, please…
- encourage your friends to enter – give them the link to this post
- repost our bluesky tweet about the comp
- like our facebook entry about the comp
- print copies of our downloadable competition info sheet and hand them out at events, give them to friends, take them to shops, libraries, etc
- check out our amazing previous competitions here