First of all, a big shout out to all of those cyclists who took part in the Gower bike ride on sunday, some found it harder than others and the overall feeling was that it went very well. Another message of support to the lady who has knocked down by a car on the Mayals Road, let’s hope she is okay after being airlifted from the scene. This hammers home the dangers of road cycling and how aware we need to be.
Cycling in general is matter of simply “doing it” !
When you first start learning to ride a bike, you simply do that, you learn how to handle your bike, the ups and downs, the fall offs, the twists and turns, and eventually you move on to using gears, and you finally discover how to go up hills, as well as the fun part of going downhills!
Then when we cut a very long story short, and you can do all of the things necessary to have full confidence to ride on your own, we then move on how to actually improve your performance, to get stronger and faster on a bike and how to last for longer.
This is a journey that can last a lifetime, and one thing you learn for sure as you get older is to ride “smarter!”.
Selecting the appropriate gears, hitting the right revolutions per minute (i always like 80 rpm), and learning how to use “drafting” to benefit in terms of work you have to do, using the wind to your advantage and benefitting from other cyclists in front of you, or even cars sometimes!
We can talk about all of these techniques and ins and outs of cycling, but the actual DOING IT is how you really develop, how you really learn how to handle a bike, and how you can end up doing such fulfilling charity rides such as the Gower bike ride yesterday, move on to triathlons maybe, or just set your own individual goals, such as your first century as one of my clients did the other day, all for his own personal satisfaction.
Don’t waste a moment and enjoy your ride, it’s all a matter of getting out there!!!
