The Bike Station is looking to recruit ten volunteer “bike route ambassadors” for a new social media project in Edinburgh. The ambassadors will help to promote a new map of Edinburgh’s extensive off-road cycle routes and walkways, many of which are based on old train lines that once ran through the city.
The Innertube Map is based on the classic London Tube Map, and aims to raise awareness of the city’s impressive network of routes. 30,000 copies of the map have just been printed, and the team behind the project recently received funding from The People’s Postcode Lottery Dream Fund to take the project to a whole new level.
The role of the ambassadors will be to cover different sections of the route near to where they live for both a group blog and an interactive online version of the map.
They’ll be trained to use multimedia 3G phones so that they can blog, tweet, and take geo-tagged photos, videos and audio recordings of what’s happening on and around the routes, and draw attention to problems like fly-tipping and litter where they occur.
You don’t have to be a cyclist to become one of the ambassadors — all sorts of people use the routes, for everything from walking their dogs to horse riding. But we are looking for people who are active and engaged local citizens, interested in the potential of the routes, and ideally interested in learning about social media.
You’ll also receive bike safety and maintenance training, and will help project partners Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust in important conservation work on some of the routes around the city.
If you’re interested in becoming an ambassador you can email innertubemap@gmail.com for more information about the role.