How to Prepare For Your First Cycling Adventure

Cycling can be both a relaxing pastime as well as an engaging sport. According to official cycling statistics from the government, the average person made 15 cycling trips and 16 cycling stages in 2022. In the same year, people spent about seven minutes a week travelling by bike, amounting to an average trip length of 3.6 miles.

Aside from travel or for sport and training, people can also cycle for leisure. In a previous post on adventure cycling, we looked at how cycling can be a great opportunity to explore beautiful landscapes in lesser-known parts of the world. At the same time, adventure cycling is also an engaging way to interact with and spend time in nature. Adventure cycling also makes for a unique travel experience as it provides a sense of self-sufficiency, and you won’t have to rely on anyone else if you don’t want to. This can lead to a real sense of personal satisfaction as cycling can be both a physical and mental exercise.

If you’re interested in going on your own cycling adventure in the near future, it’s essential to prepare well. Having the right preparations for cycling can help ensure safety as well as your overall enjoyment. Below, we’ll look at some key things to focus on when preparing for your first cycling adventure:

Ensure you have safety equipment

Depending on terrain, weather, and your preferred destination, safety equipment for cycling can vary. It’s also crucial to note that aside from simply wearing safety equipment like helmets, kneepads, elbow pads, and sunglasses, you should also ensure you’re wearing them properly.

This includes ensuring your bike helmet is snug but not too tight that it becomes uncomfortable. Some helmets, like the Oakley ARO3 Lite, allow for seamless eyewear compatibility, which can be useful and comfortable if you need to have sunglasses or eyeglasses on while out cycling. Of course, the same should apply to other safety equipment. After all, there’s no point in wearing the best or most expensive kneepads and elbow pads if you aren’t strapping them on properly. Take some time to familiarise yourself with new equipment and ensure that you can move freely while wearing them to prevent injuries or accidents.

Bring snacks and water

Next, it’s important to keep yourself energised and hydrated while out cycling, regardless of how far your destination may be. For beginners especially, cycling can often turn out more physically demanding than it looks, so it’s important to keep yourself fuelled.

Remember to pack light, but also have enough. Your travel mug, for example, can be put in your bike’s bottle cage along with a spare bottle or tumbler of water in your backpack to ensure you have enough to keep you going on your trip. Of course, like the safety equipment tip above, it’s important to ensure your snacks and water don’t get in the way of you cycling properly. The Design Vise Kage bottle cage, for example, is a multi-mountable cage that can go directly on the frame for standard cycling or behind the saddle for more intense cycling sessions to ensure it doesn’t get in the way.

Plan your cycling route

Finally, taking the time to plan out your cycling route is a key step in prepping for your first cycling adventure. This goes beyond choosing specific roads and routes to take and your destination. In fact, taking weather conditions and the time of day you will be taking your cycling route into account can help keep you safe while cycling and make it an enjoyable experience.

When planning your cycling route, take into account local cycling rules or regulations. The UK’s Highway Code, for example, allows you to cycle on all public roads apart from motorways — indicated by blue road signs. You should also be wary of roads that you are legally allowed to cycle on but should probably avoid. This includes particularly crowded roads or main roads where you may have to cycle uphill or through many crests and dips.

If you are planning your first cycling adventure, we hope the above tips prove useful.