Guest Post - Cycling by Matt

Hi All, My name is Matt and I’m addicted to cycling. Immediately you may all be turning off your browsers and looking away and of course I could understand why - cycling isn’t something that at the moment strikes people as “cool” or “trendy” or any of those words people are using. However, bare with me and I will take you through the awesome ways to the cycle across the UK and help you understand the fitness you get from it.

Cycling - From the beginning.
People think that if you are cyclist you have to know bikes in and out, which is so far from the truth, you don’t need to know anything about bikes to enjoy cycling, you don’t need fancy sat-nav systems attached to your handlebars and you don’t need to go out there with the sole aim of losing calories or weight, here’s a little tip from me to you:





Go out and enjoy riding a bike again, forget weight loss and calories.

What if you’re not confident at riding?
Don’t let that worry you. Confident cyclists all started where you are today, worrying about the cars on the road and if they are going to be hit by one or if they are going to go up a curb and ruin their bike. These are two of the things you should worry about the least, cycling is now slowly becoming one of the most supported modes of transport for city and non-city dwellers, with cycle paths shooting up across all of the UK. From Hull to Swansea and Edinburgh to Devon, a majority of those routes are cycle paths designed just for cyclists. So there are now huge curbs to go up and down and there are no cars that will pass you, safe, undisturbed cycling for you all.

I don’t know any routes.
That is a question I hear quite a lot when volunteering for Sustrans (a cycling charity), people are worried that they don’t know where they are going when they get on a cycle route. They think that they’ll get lost and confused at the first turn. I’ll be straight if you here though, all of the UK cycle routes are marked. You can also see maps on the move and before you go at the following websites: www.sustrans.org.ukand opencyclemap.org

And now to the health benefits.
You will lose weight, I’d like to get that out there straight away, cycling is better than the gym because lets face it, nothing beats mother nature, a single cycle ride that is between 1 - 5 miles can help you lose calories, strengthen your leg and stomach muscles and gives you a huge boost in confidence and I know a 1 mile cycle ride can seem a lot but there are plenty of flat cities for you to give it a go in, why not go for a cycle a long a tow path or canal? Try one of the following routes to see how you feel:

Route 47 - Newport - Chepstow
Route 8 - Cardiff - Pontypridd
Bristol - Bath Railway Path

All of these are flat and you can do as much or as little as you think you are capable with, you’ll start to feel the benefits immediately.

Before I sign off this blog post, I want to give you all pre-ride and post-ride tips:
Always take some water, make sure you have a puncture repair kit and always stop to have a look at the view!

After the ride, you may feel your legs are a little weak, depends on how are you’ve worked them, if so, don’t worry about it, just lie down for five and have a cold drink or one of those ice pop things and your legs will feel good as new!

If you have any questions then let me know I can be found on twitter under http://www.twitter.com/mattdsgns and Facebook http://www.facebook.com/matt.dsgns

About Matt.
I’m a 21 year old, blogger and website owner, I run www.visionarygateway.co.uk with my friends @JohnJMurray and @sighnomoree, it’s a creative community for anyone who likes fashion, art, design, photography or music.