Читать книгу The Lancashire Cycleway. The tour and 17 day rides онлайн

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Having said all that, any bike which gets used instead of bus or car will pay for itself sooner or later. If your employer is signed up to Cyclescheme (www.cyclescheme.co.uk), you should be able to get tax breaks on any new bike up to £1000, saving you up to 42%.

Do you regularly get off and push on hills? A really vicious climb will have most people walking, but if you’re regularly getting off on slopes of 15% or easier it’s worth reviewing your bike’s range of gears. With the right range of gears, cycling’s easier than walking on any incline you’ll meet on the Lancashire Cycleway (the maximum is about 18%).

If your bike’s existing gears aren’t low enough, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need a new bike. New sprockets and/or chainrings may be all you need, with perhaps also a new rear derailleur – ask your bike shop.

If you do have a mountain bike, you’ll almost certainly have low enough gearing for any climb on the Cycleway. For long days on tarmac, do yourself a huge favour and swap those knobbly tyres for something smoother. Those chunky knobs are for soft and loose surfaces; road tyres generally have pretty minimal tread. Higher pressures give a harder ride, but transmit your pedalling effort efficiently. However, current thinking is that wider tyres and proportionately lower pressures can give a smoother ride with minimal penalty in effort. For road bikes, 25mm to 28mm tyres have become much more common in recent years, even for racing. Mountain bikes and hybrids will have wider tyres anyway.