#ActiveLockleaze Monday Motivation Blog
As part of our partnership project #ActiveLockleaze we like to feature regular posts for our Monday Motivation or Spotlight On section.
This is just one of the ways we promote physical activities and sports opportunities in Lockleaze. By sharing providers and participants' personal stories we aim to inspire and motivate and encourage all residents to lead more active lives.
This week we focus on LifeCycle & Dr Bike.
Nicky Sweetland
I started riding my bike around Bristol more than 20 years ago, when my car broke down and I couldn’t afford to get it fixed. I hadn’t cycled since I was a kid, but I soon realised that cycling was a brilliantly cheap and easy way to get around the city.
For years I used my bike to get to work, visit friends and go out in the evening. But I also noticed that I started getting fitter, and that I was really enjoying time on my bike. I found that riding my bike ride both before and after work really helped me to deal with stress.
In 2021 I started working for Life Cycle, a local charity which helps people to get cycling. I worked on a research project to find out if using an electric bike would be a good way for people recovering from cancer to get more active. During my time working on this study, I became really inspired by Life Cycle’s many projects and I trained to be a Ride Leader, a Cycle Instructor and a Bike Mechanic. So now I have many different cycling hats!
In recent years I’ve also got into long distance cycling. It started with a 2-day ride to Bournemouth with a friend. Then I rode home from London to Bristol last year. Then this year I cycled with a friend from Bristol all the way to Scotland – something I never thought I would be able to do! It took us 10 days, we covered over 400 miles, and it was such a brilliant experience. Riding that sort of distance really made us see the country in a different way and it felt like such an achievement to get that far under our own steam!
This summer I’m helping to run the Life Cycle Loves Lockleaze project, which is on from now until the end of September 2024. Every week on a Thursday we are up at The Vench. We have free Dr Bike sessions where a mechanic can give your bike a safety check and make simple repairs including sorting out brakes and gears. We also have free one to one bike lessons available for adults of all abilities. These lessons are tailored to exactly what you need - from learning to cycle tackling busy roads. During a lesson you could get help to work out a route to work, practice your junctions or just learn how to balance – it’s entirely up to you, and the lesson will always go at your own pace.
We also have some free group rides and family rides going on, as well as goody bags to give away! We’ll be up at The Vench every Thursday in the summer holidays 10am – 2pm so please do drop by and say hello!
Dr. Bike
I took my bike to Benny just for a check-up because I saw the signs when passing and had heard of Dr Bike from working at the hospital, but they’re always fully booked at work.
Benny kindly cleaned my chain and explained to me how to do this, and we chatted quite a bit about how often to oil a bike so it’s not too much!
The main take away was being told my tyres weren’t fully pumped up! That was really surprising! I’ve been cycling in Bristol for 7 years since moving here for Uni, and I’d always pumped them up until they ‘feel full’. But seeing that they were at ~30-40 PSI (and finding out what PSI is), and learning that mine need to be ~100, explained so much for me. I always thought my punctures were due to glass on the roads! But they’re probably largely due to my low tyre pressure.
Cycling home from the BRI up that giant hill in Lockleaze is so much easier now! I can’t believe I've been cycling with such low tyre pressure.
I think if Benny had just pumped my tyres up and done his check-up, I’d still not know! But he explained everything in an easy way, and it’s definitely going to completely change my cycling experience from now on!
I’m very much a ride-my-bike-until-there’s-an-obvious-problem kind of cyclist. I didn’t think such a small check-up would make such a big difference, and I now think it’s about time I go to a maintenance class to learn a bit more about the basics!
It was also really nice how non-judgemental he was about my complete lack of bike knowledge!
Fleur, local resident