Cycling FAQ
What's so good about cycling?
Cycling is cheap
Once you've got your bike it's free, unlike going to the gym or swimming or sky diving(!).
Cycling is useful
Unlike swimming, or going to the gym, or skydiving, cycling can actually serve a purpose, in that you can cycle to work, cycle to the shops, take your kids to school...
Cycling is fun!
There is so much to enjoy - the physical exhilaration, freewheeling down a hill, the sense of achievement from riding up a hill, the freedom to ride further than you though possible, learning how to maintain your bike, doing something which doesn't tie you to a car...
Cycling can be built into your daily routines
Instead of driving more, you could cycle more and drive less. So many people join gyms or go on diets and fill themselves with unrealistic targets and then get fed up and down when they fail to meet them. If you cycle, you don't have to pay to join an expensive gym, or have to eat strange foods as part of a calorie-controlled diet - you'll burn up lots of energy cycling, and you'll find that cycling is enjoyable and that using the bike to pop to the shops is far more realistic and attaintable a goal than trying to look like Kylie Minogue / Brad Pitt / [other default slimline celebrity].
Cycling is good for your body
It is widely recognised that along with swimming, cycling is one of the best forms of all round exercise a body can get. You're not putting your body under a lot of stress, it's not high impact (like running - which can hammer your knees, or like squash for example, which has a good track record of killing unfit people who get carried away chasing after the ball), it can be as gentle or as strenuous as you choose.
Cycling allows you to explore more
When on a bike, you have the freedom to leave your house / flat / canal boat / mansion and instantly explore your surroundings. Unlike driving in a car, where everything whizzes past in a blur (unless you get stuck in lots of traffic jams), cycling gives you the opportunity to take your time, to look around, to feel the wind in your face, to hear birds singing, to smell cow dung and silage and get mud on your shoes.
It removes you from the sterile world most of us in the 'developed' world live in. Of course, running also gives you these things, but running hurts, running is also slow, and you can't carry loads of shopping or your children on your back while you're running either.
Cycling allows you the freedom to explore for miles around where you live, to have the opportunity to see where this lane or that track takes you. You can cover miles and miles in a day (even if you're not super fit or don't have a posh bike, you can still have a good look around.)
Cycling encourages independence
When I lived with my parents, I found that cycling was such a good way to get out into the countryside and to have a look around, and to feel separate from my folks, to feel like I was taking on something for myself, to feel independent.
This has further extended now in that I often commute to work on my bike, and am thus completely independent of being tied to bus / train / helicopter timetables, as I can leave when I please. It has allowed us as a family to stick to using one car, so my wife and kids can use the car on the days I ride to work, instead of it being stuck in a car park from 8am to 5pm gathering bird poo stains and scratches from passing car scratching infants and youths.
Cycling can save you money
I often cycle to work instead of drive. This means my wife can use the car and fill it with herself and our kids, instead of me drive it to work alone, and have it sit empty all day, and then drive home again alone at the end of the day.
We have a diesel car - it costs us about £1 to do ten miles in it, approximately. Therefore on a round trip to work, that's £5 on petrol, as I live about 25 miles from work.
About twice a week I ride to work instead, which means I am saving us about £10 per week. That doesn't sound like much, but over the year that's a few hundred pounds, or a family holiday or two. We don't need to buy two cars, and I get to feel pleased with myself for fitting my cycling into the working week, as I don't have the time to do it in the evenings or at weekends.
Even if I don't cycle all the way, I still have the option of a 10 mile ride to get the train to work instead, which is the best of both worlds. Still less reliance on the car.
That doesn't mean that I'm a cycling fanatic - I just like to cycle to work. It doesn't mean everyone has to do it, and it isn't done to make me feel better than anyone else.
Cycling helps you to feel alive
This sounds so corny, but it's so true. For me, the main thing I love about cycling is the fact that it is a completely self sufficient mode of transport. Where I live I can look all around and think that I have cycled to all of the places I can see for miles around, and that I have done all of that myself.
Added to that are those special moments which are maybe akin to the hill walker walking up a mountain in the early morning to be met with the view of a sea of clouds and a line of mountain peaks looming up through the clouds... For example, the joy of riding up a big hill and getting to coast down the other side for miles, or the feeling of cycling further than I've ever done before, or further than I thought I could, of seeing hills, feeling the heat of the road pulsing back at me, of being out in the thick of nature, feeling the rain in my face, of smelling the smell of moorland wafting up across the heather and the hills. There is so much to enjoy...
Of course, that's just me. If your idea of fun isn't cycling then my prose will be lost on you.
Isn't it expensive?
I suppose this is a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string type questions, but to be honest, no it isn't. It depends on how far you want to take it.
For example, if you don't have a bike, and you decide you want to get a bike, then you're probably going to need to spend some money in order to acquire a bike, unless you steal one, or someone you know gives you one.
However, getting a bike needn't be expensive. I've been really into cycling since 1989, and in all that time I've had quite a few bikes, but the ones that have really stood the test of time have been pretty low-end (as in, basic) second-hand racing bikes. As with most things in life, you're either a "I must have the latest shiny gadget / bike / car / trainers / LCD toothpick holding mobile phone" person, or you're a "I don't care about looks as long as it works" person. I'm the latter, so I've been able to get a lot of good bikes for not a lot of money. I had a nice old Raleigh Criterium which I rode from 1994 until about 2001 which did tens of thousands of miles. That died when we (that's the non royal "me and the man at the bikeshop") found the chainset was permanently stuck on and could never be removed.
Then I had a nice old second hand Raleigh Record Sprint, but the frame cracked on that one. I'm now riding an old Peugeout from the late 1980s / early 1990s and it is lovely. It's not really posh, but I've found that having a posh bike doesn't translate into being a Lance Armstrong contender. And that bike was free - someone I worked with gave it me as it was lying around their garage. So the answer there is, getting a bike needn't be expensive if you're prepared to look / ask around a bit first.
Do I need to wear Lycra?
No! There aren't really any "rules" about what to wear when you're cycling. Obviously common sense comes into it a bit, but if you're just doing a few gentle miles, it's unlikely you'll need to wrap your body up in figure-hugging lycra. Just be aware that the faster you go, the more you sweat, so you might not want to go for a jaunt up into the hills wearing a thick pair of dungarees and a hebridean wool cardigan.
Lycra does have it's place though. For years I resisted it, and did my (summer) cycling in a pair of standard shorts and a cotton t-shirt. Then I came upon Lycra and it is useful if you ride fast enough to sweat as it doesn't get all damp and clammy. Because it is thin any sweat tends to get "wicked" away into the atmosphere. That means you stay dry and beautiful, like a packet of foil wrapped mince pies.
Of course, lycra clad cycle purists powering through the countryside can put a lot of potential cyclists off, because they look so other-wordly and a lot of people equate cycling with these lycrists... It doesn't have to be like that - just cycle in whatever you feel comfortable in.
Won't I get run over and killed by a car / bus / tank?
People are rightly concerned about the potential dangers of cycling on the roads.
I have found that the vast majority of motorists are kind and considerate to cyclists. Obviously that depends on where you live and also on how you cycle.
There are some cyclists who ride through red lights on their bikes, who cycle wide into the road (or in big groups and take up as much room as a car on the road), and personally I think this is wrong. It gives a bad impression of cyclists, and if I'm stuck behind them while driving, I also think they're irritating and should learn to ride more considerately.
There are plenty of things you can do while cycling to stay in control and to give motorists the confidence to treat you like a real person instead of an annoying moving obstacle who is preventing them from getting from A to B as quickly as they would like. These include things like:
- Riding about 2 or 3 feet into the road, thus avoiding the risk of riding down storm drains, and also making sure that cars don't try any unsafe overtaking - if you ride wide the cars behind you have to think about when to overtake, instead of thinking you're really enjoying riding in the gutter, and that that's where you belong.
- Giving clear indications about where you're going - ride confidently by giving motorists clear hand signals, and giving them plenty of time in advance of when you need to turn left / right. That's far better than waiting until the last minute, sticking your hand out then wobbling into the middle of the road a split second later...
- Wear bright clothes when visibility is poor - i.e. in the dark / fog etc.
- Use lights - they not only alert motorists to your presence, but make you feel more confident too, as you can be sure that you're well lit up and are therefore more likely to be treated well by motorists.
What next?
Since you're already reading this on a web page, then it might be worth looking at other web pages about cycling. As you are no doubt aware, cycling, like everything else on the web, is total over-represented with a few million websites devoted to the subject (25 million at the last count). Here are some:
