I grew up in a city that has hundreds of miles of cycle paths, you could ride anywhere without ever having to ride on a main road, only the occasional first/last section to get to a house/shop. The nearest path to my old house was 150 yards down the road and when I was growing up before I started driving at 17 (mid 90’s), we used to ride everywhere. It was about 8 miles from corner of the city to the other.
As I got older and relied on a car… I found myself missing cycling. So in 2017, I got a 21spd hybrid city bike… Alas, I discovered that injuries and post op limitations restricted me to at best… 5-6 miles and I was exhausted.
So in 2022, I got myself an e-bike. A Haibike Trekking with the bosch mid drive system. I can now ride with ease once more.
Alas… I also moved from that city with hundreds of miles of cycle paths a few months after getting it… Now I live near to the sea and mountains… and there are 2 cycle routes near me. One I can do a 9m round trip, it would be longer but for some daft reason they never finished the path around the reservoir and it’s boggy and muddy for 5 months of the year or any time it rains in the other 7 months. The other route means riding about 1/2 mile through town to pick up the nearest path and then you’ve got about 7 more miles of pretty flat, open countryside next to a river… but also next to flood planes. So at this time of year, it can flood a section about 1/2 a mile long at the 2.5m mark (from my house). Oh and that first route, also floods long before you ever get to the reservoir restricting your ride to at best 4 miles in total there and back… it’s only 9 miles without the flooding.
I can do an 8 mile trip to an estuary and add another 1 mile I’m on the edge of a huge forest… 2 further miles through the forest and I’m at the beach… making it a 22 mile round trip… But the stony, gravel roads aren’t exceptionally suited to my city bike. I’ve bought reinforced tyres and puncture proof tubes… so maybe I’ll give it a shot next year.
For now, it’s unlikely I’ll be getting much riding done until March.
I grew up in a city that has hundreds of miles of cycle paths, you could ride anywhere without ever having to ride on a main road, only the occasional first/last section to get to a house/shop. The nearest path to my old house was 150 yards down the road and when I was growing up before I started driving at 17 (mid 90’s), we used to ride everywhere. It was about 8 miles from corner of the city to the other.
As I got older and relied on a car… I found myself missing cycling. So in 2017, I got a 21spd hybrid city bike… Alas, I discovered that injuries and post op limitations restricted me to at best… 5-6 miles and I was exhausted.
So in 2022, I got myself an e-bike. A Haibike Trekking with the bosch mid drive system. I can now ride with ease once more.
Alas… I also moved from that city with hundreds of miles of cycle paths a few months after getting it… Now I live near to the sea and mountains… and there are 2 cycle routes near me. One I can do a 9m round trip, it would be longer but for some daft reason they never finished the path around the reservoir and it’s boggy and muddy for 5 months of the year or any time it rains in the other 7 months. The other route means riding about 1/2 mile through town to pick up the nearest path and then you’ve got about 7 more miles of pretty flat, open countryside next to a river… but also next to flood planes. So at this time of year, it can flood a section about 1/2 a mile long at the 2.5m mark (from my house). Oh and that first route, also floods long before you ever get to the reservoir restricting your ride to at best 4 miles in total there and back… it’s only 9 miles without the flooding.
I can do an 8 mile trip to an estuary and add another 1 mile I’m on the edge of a huge forest… 2 further miles through the forest and I’m at the beach… making it a 22 mile round trip… But the stony, gravel roads aren’t exceptionally suited to my city bike. I’ve bought reinforced tyres and puncture proof tubes… so maybe I’ll give it a shot next year.
For now, it’s unlikely I’ll be getting much riding done until March.
Keep it up!