Men and Bikes With a Past… HMP Pentonvile

The 2027 Tour of Tours raises money for the William Wates Memorial Trust. As part of that, I get to visit some of the charities the Trust supports and see where the money Le Loop cyclists raise actually goes. I expected that to make the training feel more worthwhile. I didn't expect the first visit to stay with me the way it has.
Today I walked through the gates of HMP Pentonville on the Caledonian Road. It opened in 1842 as a The 2027 Tour of Tours raises money for the William Wates Memorial Trust. As part of that, I get to visit some of the charities the Trust supports and see where the money Le Loop cyclists raise actually goes. I expected that to make the training feel more worthwhile. I didn't expect the first visit to stay with me the way it has.
Today I walked through the gates of HMP Pentonville on the Caledonian Road. It opened in 1842 as a model prison, built for a little over five hundred men with a cell each. It now holds many more than it was designed for, 1200 was quoted to me today. When the prison inspectors visited in the summer of 2025, they found six in ten men sharing a cell built for one. Most were locked up for more than twenty-two hours a day, and the inspectors called the place "dirty, noisy and chaotic." I had read some of the report before I went. Reading it is not the same as walking through it, with every door unlocked in front of you and locked again behind you.
Phones stay at the gate, so there are no photographs from inside. You'll have to take my word for what I experienced today.
I was there to see the XO Bikes workshop. XO stands for ex-offenders, and it's run by Onwards & Upwards, one of the charities the William Wates Memorial Trust supports. The idea is simple: train people while they are in prison as bike mechanics, give them a trade and support them into work, so the cycle of release and return to prison is broken. The main workshop and shop are on Lewisham High Street. The Pentonville workshop opened in 2024 with help from the City & Guilds Foundation, and it's aimed at men who are close enough to release that a trade waiting for them outside could make a real difference.
The change of atmosphere between the workshop and the wing was really easily felt, tension, noise and an ordered chaos in the wing is an understatement. In the workshop the men were working on rear mechs today, checking frames and talking gears with real pride and knowledge. Anyone at Newbury Velo who has spent a Sunday morning trying to index a rear mech knows it takes patience and a light touch. In here those qualities have value. The work is careful and exact, and you either get it right or you don't. The difference between the corridor of the wing and the workbench was impossible to miss.
In four weeks these men earn a recognised mechanics qualification. The bikes they learn on are donated, stripped down, rebuilt and sold, and the money trains the next mechanic. So one man's work helps pay for the next man's chance. XO Bikes' director, Stef Jones, describes the mission as: "Take men and bikes with a past, and give them a future." Having now seen it in person, I don't think that's just a slogan. On release, the men can carry on training at the Lewisham workshop, with mentoring, employment coaching and introductions to employers who might give them their first proper job.
That first job matters more than most of us realise. Ministry of Justice figures show that around four in ten adults leaving prison reoffend within a year. For those who served short sentences, it's more than six in ten. Behind each of those numbers is a man who walked out of the gate with nowhere to go and nothing to do. A qualification, a reference and someone who expects you to turn up for work can change that.
What humbled me most was how much I take for granted. Most of us at the club learned to fix a puncture from a parent, a friend or a patient club mate at the side of the road, or maybe at one of our club bike maintenance sessions. Someone showed us, and then someone else showed us something more. Many of the men I met today have never had that, and many cannot read or write either. For us the bike means fitness, friendship and cake at the café stop. For them it might be the first thing they've been properly trained to do, the first certificate with their name on it, and the first line on a CV that an employer will read without looking away.
I went into Pentonville thinking I understood what the fundraising was for. I came out knowing who it's for. There will be cold, wet mornings this winter when the training plan on its own isn't enough to get me out of the door. I suspect I'll think about that workshop, and those men working on rear mechs, getting it right and giving themselves a better future.
If you'd like to follow the rest of my 2027 Tour of Tours journey, keep an eye on this blog, and please make a donation to the trust: https://fundraising.wwmt.org/fundraisers/simonbowden