Within the XO Bikes workshop deep inside Pentonville Jail, North London, 4 trainee mechanics are checking the body alignment on a secondhand Trek bike. They’re utilizing the old-school string approach, which they’ve spent the morning mastering, below the tutelage after all chief and former jail officer Paul Nurden.
Take a look at full, they transfer on to reseating and truing the wheels, whereas enthusiastically explaining the talents they’re studying and the way they plan to make use of them on the skin. John, who has simply obtained a parole listening to date, is already a skilled automobile mechanic and has been serving to Nurden ship the programs. (To guard their identities, we’re not utilizing actual names or giving surnames for John and the opposite inmates on this function. )
He is hoping the decide will probably be impressed by the constructive manner he has used his time. Subsequent to him is Ali, who was a cab driver previous to going inside – a job he cannot return to as soon as he will get out.
“I am studying a brand new residing right here,” he beams. The classroom is calm and quiet, in full distinction to scenes I quickly witness elsewhere within the jail. At the same time as a really transient customer, ‘The Ville’, a Victorian-era establishment, is an intimidating place, stuffed with motion, noise and pressure.
It is dinnertime, and a few cell doorways are open, revealing tiny rooms, every with primary bunk beds and a rest room. This Class-B/C jail, inbuilt 1842, was designed to carry 520 males in single-occupancy cells. Now there are over 1,100 inmates right here, largely two to a cell. We’re greeted with some arduous stares as we cross by a number of steel gates, however many prisoners are keen to speak, particularly to the person I am with: Stef Jones from XO Bikes.
Simply identifiable in his branded prime, Jones is named “Bike Geezer” in right here, and phrase has unfold that the mechanic course XO gives inmates can facilitate extra than simply momentary respite from the heavy environment of the wings – it will possibly open an escape route from a lifetime of crime and incarceration.
XO Bikes graduate Danny is again on monitor
(Picture credit score: Louis Amore Images)
Sadly, statistics state that many of those males, after being launched, will find yourself again inside. In response to a report launched in February by former MP and Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke, over half (56.9%) of males launched from jail after serving a brief custodial sentence will reoffend.
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Britain’s jails are full to bursting, and 4 out of each 5 inmates are repeat offenders. XO stands for ex-offender, and XO Bikes exists to assist break this bleak cycle. “Our mission is to supply folks the talents and self-belief they should make it on the skin,” Jones tells me as we stroll the flooring of Europe’s greatest jail wing.
“Many of those guys have by no means been given recognition for something of their complete lives. Merely getting a certificates saying they’ve accomplished the course, not to mention handed it, means a large quantity to them. “
Many of those guys have by no means been given recognition for something of their complete lives
Stef Jones, XO Bikes
Whereas volunteering in HMP Brixton, as a mentor within the chaplaincy, Jones grew exasperated at seeing males coming again in, months after strolling out the door full of excellent intentions. Their tales had been depressingly related: nobody would make use of them.
“When you possibly can’t get a job it is arduous to get your life into any kind of order,” Jones explains. “And it is all too simple to fall again into dangerous firm and habits. ” Jones’s answer was to make use of them himself. He based a charity known as Onwards and Upwards, and in the course of the Covid lockdown conceived the thought of XO Bikes. The programme takes offenders by Velotech coaching programs, with the bronze degree presently being taught in Pentonville and Feltham Younger Offenders Institute.
Extra superior programs are delivered at XO Bikes’s South London coaching centre. As soon as they’re certified bike mechanics, ex-offenders are helped by the charity to search out employment. XO Bikes retains a employees of ‘fixers’, as graduates of the course are identified, and takes in pre-loved bikes – some donated by the general public, others arriving by way of the Metropolitan Police (recovered however unclaimed) and Transport for London (deserted at stations) – that are refurbished and offered at their shops in Wandsworth and Lewisham.
Strava Artist Nic Georgiou helped conceive a particular route round London
(Picture credit score: Louis Amore Images)
“We take bikes with a previous and blokes with a previous,” says Jones, “and we give them each an opportunity to have a future. ” In a earlier life, Jones did 20 years as an promoting govt, and he nonetheless is aware of precisely the right way to seize folks by the eyeballs.
When donated bikes arrive badly scratched, the body is resprayed and it turns into an XO ‘swag’ bike. Every one among these restored steeds is offered with a motorbike lock formed like a set of handcuffs. Everybody who completes the programme will get a quantity, beginning with Tray, XO1, who has now been working as a mechanic for 3 years and helps Nigel Brook, XO’s head mechanic, ship superior programs.
Every ‘swag’ bike is branded with a code, the fixer’s digits adopted by the variety of bikes he has restored (e. g. ‘swag’ bike 001/020 is the twentieth bike Tray refurbished). There’s additionally a QR code that hyperlinks to extra details about the one that labored in your bike. For the purchaser, it is a part of a cool story, however for the fixers these parts are badges of honour, reinforcing an actual sense of accomplishment.
And the stats communicate for themselves: nearly 100 males have been by the programme, and simply 4 have re-offended. Just lately, to boost consciousness, Jones started collaborating with Nic Georgiou, a Strava artist, who designed a biking route round London, taking within the metropolis’s 4 essential males’s prisons (Pentonville, Brixton, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs), whereas digitally etching the XO brand on the map.
After an opportunity assembly with Georgiou, I discover myself a part of the crew tasked with driving this route, together with XO Bikes programme-graduate-turned-employee Ollie (XO22) and several other members of the Chain Gang, a London-based biking membership.
Not even the rain can cease the riders as they create their art work GPS
(Picture credit score: Louis Amore Images)
We meet within the Breakout Café, reverse Pentonville, the place Ollie presents us with XO-branded striped biking jerseys, designed to resemble the jail clobber you see convicts sporting in cartoons. When daybreak reluctantly breaks, the day is as gray because the jail partitions, in opposition to which we kind a line-up for a photograph, earlier than pedalling into the drizzle.
Becoming a member of us for the primary few miles is Will Norman, London’s Biking and Strolling Commissioner, an effervescent ambassador for human-powered transport and passionate supporter of XO Bikes. “The XO programme is actually lowering reoffending charges, but in addition, on the different finish, they’re making high-quality bikes accessible to folks at a extremely inexpensive worth,” Norman enthuses, as we roll by backstreets. “For folks on low incomes, the excessive price of bikes is a large barrier to biking, so it is a nice initiative. “
As a working example, I am driving a good-as-new-looking carbon-framed Trek Madone, which arrived within the XO system by way of the Met and will probably be offered on to some fortunate punter at a fraction of its unique worth. The primary a part of our trip is fiddly, as Georgiou navigates us by slender alleys and up and down cul-de-sacs, expertly drawing digital strains that may, as soon as uploaded, magically manifest the form of a highway bike on the facet of a huge XO brand.
“It is extra artwork than train,” observes Norman wryly as we pause our GPS gadgets once more earlier than U-turning and reactivating them, to create the define of the handlebars. Norman has conferences to attend and bike lanes to plan, so he quickly scoots off and our tempo picks up, as we begin the much less intricate a part of the drawing, crossing the river and becoming a member of the dots between HMP Brixton and Wandsworth.
Ollie tells me his story whereas we trip. He’d loved an excellent schooling and a settled upbringing however made a mistake in his 20s that resulted in a conviction, and shortly found doorways had been shutting in his face.
It feels good to have a job. My household is proud
Danny
“I could not get a job wherever,” he explains. He came upon about XO Bikes, accomplished the course, and is now operations supervisor at Jones’s charity Onwards and Upwards, bringing firsthand data of the challenges folks with prison data face. Our shared bodily problem quickly goes up a number of cogs too, because the temperature plummets and we’re hit by relentless rain and hail storms.
A tyre drawback places paid to Chain Gang rider Darren’s day, and when dusk begins nipping at our heels, Louis leaves us too, struggling extreme toe numbness. Ollie, Nic and I grit our chattering enamel and circle round to Wormwood Scrubs, lastly ending the XO brand by 9pm, after a full day within the saddle and 127km of driving.
The subsequent day, returning the bike to XO’s Wandsworth retailer, I meet 23-year-old Danny, who’s servicing a fork within the workshop. He tells me he had at all times ridden and constructed bikes as a child, however acquired in with the incorrect crowd as a young person, and ended up in hassle with the legislation.
After being put in contact with XO Bikes by the Ahead Belief, he accomplished the course, as Fixer X010, and now works within the store 5 days per week. “It feels good to have a job,” he smiles. “My household is proud. ” And with some stability in his life, he can look ahead, and make plans. “I might like to have a motorbike store and a enterprise of my very own sooner or later,” he says, sounding rather a lot like a bloke with a future.
Easy methods to purchase a motorbike from XO
For years, savvy cyclists have been saving vital sums on new bikes by making the most of the cycle-to-work scheme. Now, an analogous idea has been developed for folks buying pre-loved steeds from XO Bikes. Simply launched, and meant to enhance entry to good bikes for extra folks, the Recycle to Work scheme lets you purchase secondhand bikes by your employer, lowering the tax burden. Utterly refurbished bikes purchased from XO Bikes already price about half their unique worth, and this scheme means you can also make further financial savings of 30 to 50%. For extra, see xobikes.com/recycle-to-work-scheme.
