The Tour de France has not long finished, this is the pinnacle of cycling for most people, writes Pete Richards.<\/p>\n
It is certainly hard to imagine just how fit you need to be to complete it.<\/p>\n
Luckily you do not need to be anywhere near as fit as Tadej Poga\u010dar, who won this year, to enjoy cycling.<\/p>\n
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Cycling is great to do if you are looking to do more exercise.<\/p>\n
It will give you more cardiovascular benefit than swimming, build some leg strength and is also non-weight bearing – easier on the joints than running.<\/p>\n
And it is a skill that we haven\u2019t forgotten, it\u2019s like riding a bike.<\/p>\n
Most of us cycled when we were growing up.<\/p>\n
This was a time of meeting up with friends and having fun and adventures.<\/p>\n
And this is what exercise should be like when you are grown up; it shouldn\u2019t feel like a chore but instead something to look forward to.<\/p>\n
Most of my rides are with friends, having fun, exploring new roads and the mandatory stop at a cafe for a coffee, and yes, a piece of cake.<\/p>\n
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We are lucky in Taunton as it is so easy to get started again on a bike if it has been a while since you last cycled.<\/p>\n
We have the canal, running all the way to Bridgwater if you want, although you could just go as far as the tea rooms at Maunsel Lock.<\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t got a bike then you could hire one from Parrett Trail Bikes in Langport, they even have e-bikes to make it even easier to get started again.<\/p>\n
There is the added bonus that there is The Bakery cafe right next door so you can have your coffee afterwards.<\/p>\n
On Your Bike in Taunton is another great place to hire bikes from.<\/p>\n
There is such a variety of places to cycle around Taunton.<\/p>\n
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The Levels are lovely if you want to avoid the hills.<\/p>\n
For something hillier then we have the Quantocks, The Blackdown Hills or even Exmoor.<\/p>\n
And in every direction, there are many bike-friendly cafes – I feel I should be able to write a guide to them.<\/p>\n
If you want any advice on getting started with cycling, or routes or cafes then get in touch with me.<\/p>\n
Summer is a perfect time to get back on your bike.<\/p>\n
Do it on your own or with friends, but get out there, have fun, explore and perhaps treat yourself to a coffee at the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tour de France has not long finished, this is the pinnacle of cycling for most people, writes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,49769,49770,82,1422],"class_list":["post-83031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-pete-richards","tag-riding-a-bike","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}