Cycle your way to health and happiness

Cycle your way to health and happiness

A series of events for seasoned cyclists or budding Bradley Wiggins’ will take place in the borough this month to celebrate National Bike Week.

Tours, road rides, traffic free rides, mountain biking and free bike checks will be available as part of the celebration from 15 – 23 June and is aimed at encouraging everyone to get back in the saddle.

Rochdale Borough Council has made the borough more cycle friendly by spending over £2 million over the last five years mproving cycle routes and installing additional town centre bicycle storage.

Councillor Colin Lambert, Rochdale Borough Council Leader and lead member for health, said: “Cycling offers everyone a pleasurable and healthy leisure pastime. Children, teens, whole families and communities can bond with a ride.

“It’s also a great way to travel. It's healthy, environmentally friendly and affordable and with our recent Olympics success, more popular now than ever.

"We’ve been working hard to improve the safety of our highway for cyclists and encourage greater uptake of this green and sustainable form of transport." 

Playing host to the Tour of Britain in 2010, hundreds of the world’s best riders started the eight day race on the stroke of the town hall’s clock.

Four years later, the riding elite are set to return to the town again when the Tour de France 2014 touches the borough’s boundaries. The 200km race from York to Sheffield, sees the route pass through Rochdale at Blackstone Edge turning left from Turvin Road (B6138) onto Rochdale Road (A58).

The council offers free confidence and skills training for adults wishing to learn from scratch or refresh their cycling skills. The course helps to improve balance, awareness and build confidence to tackle the roads. And its Casualty Reduction Team provide safer cycling training in the borough’s schools and to community clubs and groups.

• Bike Week Events