So the nation’s gone cycling bonkers.

This is great.

Really, this is awesome.

There’s a ‘but’ coming isn’t there?!

BUT (told you!)

We need to ride safely on the road.  No matter who you are you are almost certainly:

1. Not immortal (i.e. a car can kill you)

2. Loved by someone and/or a role model for someone (so wear a bl@@dy helmet)

We need to ride better on the roads if we are going to keep motorists happy and as the number of cyclists increases this will get worse unless we improve our road handling.  Now, we could teach you but there is a way that is so much more effective.

Let’s cut to the chase.  Join a club.  Please.

Click on The British Cycling Logo below then take a look at 2 things:

1. It is definitely worth joining British Cycling – have a read when you click on the link

2. Once you done that look along the top tabs and click on “clubs”.  Now you can pop in your postcode and see what clubs are in you area, you might be surprised how many.  Drop us a line if you’re confused.

So, for safer and more rewarding cycling, click the logo below:

By the way, cyclists aren’t that bad on the road, we just want to keep it that way.

In fact 2 of us were out Saturday in single file with a car behind us and a horse coming the other way.  The car went full throttle through the gap as the “lady” horse rider shocked everyone with how many expletives she knew at the top of her voice.  Needless to say the motorist didn’t do much to help the reputation of motorists and the horse “lady” ? Well…….

Ok so we have been asked about whether the leg press is a good exercise and shouldn’t we all be doing squats instead.

Well, yes squats are by far one of the most useful, functional, multi-joint, compound, fandabbydozy for cyclists but don’t completely blank the poor leg press machine sitting there all sad in the corner!

Leg Presses can be done in conjunction with squats especially if, say you have no squat rack/spotter you could squat until it becomes too unsafe to continue (e.g before you can’t get back up or before you can’t press the bar back over your shoulders) then finish your legs off to failure on leg press.

OR – Do dumbell squats but people’s posture suffers here as you’re pulled forward so be careful.

OR – One legged leg press (say that after a few pints ahem of protein shake of course!) can help you bring the weak leg up to scratch if one legged squats are too much for you.

BUT – Never neglect squats, even just body weight squats, please.

A Personal Trainer might be a good call at this point check out www.paulbutlerfitness.com.

We were lucky enough to be chatting to an Elite cyclist at the weekend who, at 60kg, was never going to win any sumo wrestling competitions but we did ask him why he races so many Belgium Kermesses when he is ideally built for hilly races yet they are held on pan flat roads.

His answer?

“You train your weaknesses don’t you?”

So you have been preparing all season for L’Etape or La Marmotte (which you successfully dragged your body around) or you’ve been racing hard and now the weather has decided that the season is over!  Some of you have some late season races, winter crits, hill-climbs or sportives of course as cycling has become so popular that it really is a year-round sport now.  For the rest of us however, a break now will really do us the world of good before we start preparing for next year.

Here is an example of how you might do this (as getting a cyclist to do nothing is a difficult challenge even in this weather!):

1.  Take 2 weeks off the bike – there you go we’ve said it, please don’t click over to another website just out of principle we promise you’ll be a better rider for it .  If you want to stay active do so but we want you to miss the bike a bit so you can’t wait to get back on it.

By the way if your season involved one 2-hour ride every 4th Sunday then please please ignore point 1 above!

2. Ride for the next month without putting any pressure on yourself:

– If you feel like having a few beers and giving the ride a miss the following day then do so.

– If you fancy mountain biking, running, swimming, going to the gym instead then do just that.

– If you want to go hard go hard, if you want to go easy go easy, probably best not to record any data though, just enjoy.

– If you’re always flying from A to B then throw in a few cafe stops, don’t get too cold though.

– Don’t try to improve during this period, just enjoy.

3.  Think about what you’d like to achieve in 2013 and start planning so that when you do start training again you know what you’re training for.

4. Now you’re both mentally and physically fresh you can start training again – that’s if the road isn’t covered in 6 inches of snow by then!

John: “It’s raining today I think I’ll give the ride a miss, I’ve got no motivation.”

Fred: “You big girl’s blouse, man up and get your lazy fat backside out the front door, don’t you dare let me down, I’ll be waiting outside the Post Office for you!”

Did you get caught in the rain today?

If you ever need motivation when out riding in the cold and the rain like today remember you’ll be one up as some of your rivals won’t be!

Winter’s coming and some of your competitors (non-racers these might simply be your mates who you’d like to thrash on the hills) will take the easy option but remember you win races in the winter and just pick up the trophies in the summer!

There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing decisions.  Some mudguards wouldn’t go amiss either please!

We bet you’re glad you did it today though 😉

Cyclists spend a lot of time hunched over the bike and the act of cycling means that your muscles contract (and therefore shorten) thousands of times every hour.

Stretching after riding keeps our muscles from shortening.

Increasing our flexibility enables us to not only stay comfortable on our bikes and put out as much power as we can but also it helps us to bend ourselves into a more aerodynamic position.   Unless you’re carrying your family in a trailer then you are the least aerodynamic part of your bike so becoming flexible enough to get lower will do your riding no end of good (and help you to do the splits the next time you’re cutting some shapes on the dance floor!)

Hold a stretch for a minimum of 30 secs but ideally 60 seconds (you are of course going to be counting quickly if you find it boring after all!)

Breath, don’t hold your breath!

Come in and out of the stretch slowly.

Stretch after the ride/session not before.  Think about it, your muscles are warm at this point and when something is warm it is more pliable and therefore more receptive to being stretched.

Stretch daily.  If it is a day when you are not exercising then stretch at your warmest point e.g. if you’ve just walked down the shops or been doing some gardening and not when you’ve just watched Avatar lying on the sofa.

How hard to stretch?  You want to feel mild tension/discomfort so about 7 out of 10, don’t force it as hard as you can.

Now sit up straight!