Your Cycling Motivation?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

SpokeyDokey

67, & my GP says I will officially be old at 70!
Moderator
I can't say that I love cycling. It's a means to an end ie keeps me fitter and less fatter than I would be if I didn't do it. It also helps me with my main passions of hill walking and mountain scrambling by keeping me fitter.

Being brutally honest most times I find cycling rather dull. There are times when it is wonderful - legs and lungs going well, pleasant weather and lovely scenery coming together can be fantastic. The problem is that those three don't often combine for me.

Plus hills hurt too much and I'm definitely not a fan of pain. :smile:
 
I think I've said this before but firstly, I enjoy cycling and secondly it gives me a sense of well being, physically and mentally. I feel relaxed and calm after a ride. Other forms of exercise do the same thing but I find cycling suits me more. I'm rarely motivated to do long rides or rather the training needed to do them and most of my rides tend to be the same or similar routes.

What I find is that whilst I ride my mind often clarifies over things I'm thinking about, I don't even notice I'm riding sometimes. Which was once a problem many years ago when I found myself 40 miles from home, with no money, no food and only a bottle of water to get me home in a much weakened state. I can't recall what it was I'd worked out as I rode, just the pain of the journey back lives on.
 

Alan O

Über Member
Location
Liverpool
My motivation is, as others have said, simply because I like it.

But since I started again a couple of years ago here in and around Liverpool, I've found a new side to it in discovering so much more about where I live. (The bulk of my cycling in my youth was in other places).

Liverpool is a fairly small city, with pretty good (and relatively inexpensive) public transport, and that's the way I've been getting around here for years. I don't have a car, but I do travel as a passenger in other people's cars too. Those are great ways of getting to a destination.

And for years I've been like that, less than inspired to take up cycling again because it just didn't seem anywhere near as nice here as when I used to cycle round Hampshire and Dorset - New Forest, Purbeck, Jurassic coast and all that.

But since I've been back on my bike, I've been discovering so many beautiful bits of countryside, pretty villages, architectural beauties, lakes, country lanes... and I never even knew most of them existed, despite having been born here almost exactly 60 years ago.

The development of off-road cycle routes has been an eye-opener too, and the Liverpool Loop line is my most used highway now. And the Leeds-Liverpool canal does a sort of semicircle around where I live at a distance of only around 4-5 miles - and I'd never seen it before, other than crossing it by car at places north of the city (and occasionally stopping for a short walk along it). I now use it as a route into the city when I feel like taking the long way round - and by including the waterfront, I can reach the two ends of the Loop Line for a really nice circuit of the city with very little on roads.

Further afield, when I lived here in my teens, one of my cycling destinations was Southport - there were some quieter diversions, but the A565 isn't the nicest road I've ridden. Now I can get there and back on two different NCN routes which are mostly off-road, with a number of variations in each direction.

And across the river, I can ride the waterfront route round the end of the peninsular, then follow the Wirral Way, across the marshes, and then the Dee path into Chester - again with almost no roads.

If those things weren't originally my motivations, they are now!
 

Heigue'r

Veteran
£75 a week savings on train fares.

The work commute has become a social commute 9 out of 10 rides.

Fitness benefits.

Chasing personel targets now and again on strava.Trying for the odd KOM allthough there are some seriously fast cyclists on route but its something to aim for,not consuming but certainly enjoyable.

The commute and the people I've met on the commute have led me to places in London I didnt know existed so looking forward to more of this.

The feelgood factor after allmost every ride,you know when you dont feel like cycling but you just go anyway,when you get off the bike at your destination,you feel so good for doing it,well I do anyway.

Just a few bits that keep me going
 

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
Cycling is easier than walking. I don't drive but do need to get places. That is my motivation :smile:
 

classic33

Leg End Member
Fair enough, but even a very good cargo bike would struggle to carry me and 120kg to a gig 70 miles away, and back...
The new jazz trio requires much less, and with a rehash of (shiny new!) equipment, it would be feasible using a repurposed DoggyRide trailer on a standard bike!
Takes it back to the OP's avatar.
 
Reading this this thread I was thinking "do I love cycling" and thought nah, I enjoy it but don't love it..then thought, hmm, have spent most of the afternoon watching the tour, then went and cleaned bike now the rain has stopped, then came in made tea and first thing I do in 'me' time is log in to a couple of cycling forums - love, not sure, more obsessed I think ^_^

In all seriousness though, I do find that when I cant go out on the bike for whatever reason, I really miss it after a few days, any more and I begin to get grumpy "I just want my bike back".

I took it up initially for fitness, knees had given up so had to cut short the football and found was putting a load of weight on. Bought a cheap bike thinking that it wouldn't help as would still be bad for the knees, but found surprisingly no knee issues at all. The more I rode the more I enjoyed it. I enjoy the 'smug' factor of the commute (just saying to myself 'well done' for doing it rather than driving), I love the endorphins cycling/exercise releases in me when I have completed a ride...no matter how bad I may feel beforehand, I always feel good about myself after a ride. One unexpected added bonus has also been discovering new places. I am lucky enough to live in Northumberland and have discovered some beautiful little villages/routes that showcase the lovely county I live in.
 

Captainwull

Senior Member
Location
Scotland
My motivation... I'm disabled and was offered a double lower leg amputation. I was bored one day and went for a ride before they were cut off, I found it cleared my head and made me feel good. So I went on a longer ride the next day..... and the next etc etc. The circulation and muscle mass improved and 11 years later I still have both my legs, they're not much good for walking or standing but they get me up and down a few hills etc, I did Huez last week :smile:
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
My motivation... I'm disabled and was offered a double lower leg amputation. I was bored one day and went for a ride before they were cut off, I found it cleared my head and made me feel good. So I went on a longer ride the next day..... and the next etc etc. The circulation and muscle mass improved and 11 years later I still have both my legs, they're not much good for walking or standing but they get me up and down a few hills etc, I did Huez last week :smile:


Wow, awesome stuff.
 

Alan O

Über Member
Location
Liverpool
My motivation... I'm disabled and was offered a double lower leg amputation. I was bored one day and went for a ride before they were cut off, I found it cleared my head and made me feel good. So I went on a longer ride the next day..... and the next etc etc. The circulation and muscle mass improved and 11 years later I still have both my legs, they're not much good for walking or standing but they get me up and down a few hills etc, I did Huez last week :smile:
Wow from me too!
 
Top Bottom