Ride Active: From Sofa to Saddle

About This Project

“This has given us the opportunity to cycle, which has been brilliant.”

We hold our Ride Active course in East Lancashire. It’s funded by Connecting East Lancashire.

The aim of this nine-week course is to encourage new cyclists to gain essential skills in a traffic-free environment, then progressing to on-road training. Each weekly session lasts 90 minutes.

Ride Active includes basic bike maintenance too.

The course finishes with a celebratory bike ride, awards, medals… and cake!

Progressive Learning

“The instructors are very friendly and approachable. They’re helping us learn at our own pace.”

These sofa to saddle sessions are designed to build riders’ skills steadily, but at a pace they’re comfortable with.

The end goal is a 10k bike ride, and working towards this we focus on the different riders’ abilities.

The course is sociable, and we deliver it in a relaxed manner. It’s available for groups and individuals, and we aim to encourage groups of learners to continue cycling together after they’ve completed the course.

Health and Wellbeing

“The scheme Go Velo is delivering within our community has benefitted us as we are not only learning how to cycle but also practising five ways of wellbeing.”

Ride Active has various benefits besides delivering bike riding skills. Cycling promotes health and wellbeing.

There are numerous health benefits in being active every day, and this includes exercise having a positive impact on cardio-vascular performance. Regular activity can be good for knee, hip and back pain, and type two diabetes.

There are five ways of wellbeing that cycling can also promote:

• Connect – talk, listen, be in the moment and feel connected
• Be active – do what you can, and enjoy doing it
• Take notice – appreciate the simple things that give you joy
• Keep learning – embrace new experiences
• Give – your time, your words, your patience.

Families and Flexibility

“ The best part was our children can learn with us too.”

Realising that many participants would not be able to attend due to childcare issues, we added further coaching and Bikeability sessions for riders’ children.   In this way, we could encourage family cycling.

For more information Go Velo’s Ride Active programme, please fill in our contact form, and we’ll be back in touch as soon as possible.