E-trike helps crash cyclist return to road

Retired social worker and academic Valentine Scarlett was on a bike ride in the Angus countryside in 2020 when disaster struck.

Coasting down a hill on her e-bike, she misjudged the road ahead and was sent hurtling over the bars.

“I was going down a hill. It’s probably to do with the way my brain works. I thought, ‘Let’s just take it’. So I took it.

“But unfortunately at the bottom of the hill the road went one way and I went the other way.”

The now-65-year-old broke her clavicle, damaged her hip, was knocked unconscious and spent a week in hospital.

For many, the accident would have marked the end of their cycling days. But not for Valentine. “I wanted to get back out on the road. And I discovered e-trikes existed.”

Valentine bought her first e-trike soon after, rekindling her passion for the sport and method of transport. I spoke to her for Bike Week 2022, which runs until Sunday.

Valentine grins at her e-trike’s distinctive blue frame, with its stick-on butterflies and a saltire.

“She’s Molly, after my gran, who was a feisty wee woman who liked her gin.”

Valentine has had lifelong issues with her mental health and the accident contributed to a particularly bad spell, but cycling has helped her recover.

She said: “It was a sense of being a regular person. My husband David used to take me out after I got Molly.

“It was just so lovely being able to see the countryside, just being a regular cyclist again.”

Bike Week 2022’s theme is local community, which is something Valentine and her fellow city cyclists, already know about. Molly has helped bring new people into Valentine’s life.

She said: “I am a member of the Dundee Cycling Forum. They are brilliant and I am a very vociferous member of the forum.”

While she fights for better cycle parking spaces and segregated cycle lanes, Valentine credits the group with creating a community that helps with mental and physical health issues, as well as pushing for better cycling infrastructure.

She said: “They’re such a support.”

COURAGEOUS: Valentine Scarlett on her e-trike, which is named Molly after her grandmother, who was a “feisty wee woman”. Picture by Mhairi Edwards.