Cycling Mistakes & How to avoid them?

These are a few things to keep in mind before beginning your trip:

The clothing has to be perfect. The clothing should be according to the day conditions that might prevail. If it’s summer or humid outside, you should just bid a farewell to all those layers and wear a simple comfortable tee-shirt that aids you in proper ventilation. When it comes to winters or cold temperatures, all you need to know is try getting as many layers as you can cause, layers come with an added advantage and that is, you can remove them anytime. If you feel hot wearing 3-4 layers you can get rid of one or two. You can go for warmer or an inner, then a tee-shirt over it and finally a sweater if it’s extremely chilled outside.

Rains or the monsoons have to be a different category of mistake altogether. Cause with rains there comes huge responsibility. Whenever leaving for a trip, not only check the route but also check for the weather that may follow the remaining day. If it rains outside, you don’t wanna go out cycling. But in case you leave your homes, then do carry some rain-gear with you. Especially in countries like India, where it gets warmer as soon as the rains stop, cutting down on the layers part, is a much sensible option. Try wearing simple tee-shirt inside and covering it should be your rain-gear. Moreover do carry an extra pair of changeable tee or something, in case something goes wrong with your rain-gear. Also, the roads tend to get a lot more slippery and especially the cyclists with thin wheels tend to fall prey to such accidents more often. So do keep an eye on the road and try to be as safe as possible!

Food plays a really important role in the journey. There are a lot of chances that you might feel dizzy or nauseated out of hunger. So you should carry some ready and easy food with you on the course of your journey. Nowadays cycling tee-shirts are available in the market which have pockets at the back for placing smaller items like chocolates or smaller water bottles etc., so you can easily place a protein bar or so in there or simply, have it your bag. Whenever you feel famished, stop and have something.

So, what foods can we carry?

Bananas, Protein Bars, Chocolates, Nuts, Biscuits

Maps are extremely crucial if you’re going somewhere you never have gone. We already know that Google Maps is an excellent app if you’re looking for routes, traffic and other surrounding utilities but apart from that, there is another app that can make your cycling experience better! Yes, and that app is none other than Strava. Strava is extremely helpful when it comes to mapping your journeys, saving directions and paths to places someone else has already been to. Strava is the cycling app you need to have if you’re a cycling freak. Strava also lets you meet other cyclists from around the globe and share their travel experiences on the platform.

Moreover before leaving you should always consider taking opinion from someone about the route and the destination of your choice because there are always chances that things might not turn out to be the same how they seem to be!

As a beginner cyclists, the most common mistake a lot of us do is that we try to cover too much distance in the initial days of our cycling itself. As a wanderlust, there is always adventure running in our veins but it is necessary to know the capabilities of our bodies too. Some of us might even cover massive distances in our initial days while some are happy cycling in their localities itself. So, in the end, it completely depends on you and your body as to how much distance you can cover. Moreover, if you’re a beginner do not try to go far off places too soon in your cycling journey. Slowly and steadily increasing your perimeter of destinations is the key to gaining stamina and strength for the long-distance cycling.

This is a mistake that sometimes even pro-cyclists commit! Do some research at least of what kind of a place is it where you’re going. How to get there and are there some things that you need to keep in mind before or after reaching that place. All of this should be researched well in advance so that there’s no hindrance in your trip. A night before your ride always look out for things around your destination to know more about the place. Or simply you can head over to YouTube & Strava where people who’ve already been there must have uploaded some of their experiences of the same place. Look-up and do your homework well!

Cycling can be fun only if your partner, the cycle supports you! So proper maintenance of your cycles is an important part of cycling too. The cycles should be maintained and checked for proper functioning of the gears, the brakes and the wheels regularly. Some of us, don’t do it ourselves but if you want to do it somewhere outside, you can give it for servicing as well. Simply oiling the parts and checking for minor errors can help in keeping your cycle in good form.

When it comes to braking, many of us fail to understand the basics. The brakes are simply used to stop us or to slow us down. But the brakes are a huge enemy to the tires. Whenever you brake, a significant portion of your tire gets scratched against the road and the grip of your tire gets eroded. Seemingly with time, the more you brake, the more erosion takes place and slowly your tire starts losing the grip. So you need to take care of not braking too hard as it can burn off a major part of the tire as it rubs against the road. Simply changing the gear to a lower one can be implied to get a minor speed drop!

As a cyclist, traffic rules don’t apply to us but there are some rules that we as good citizens need to follow. Not all, but there are a few traffic rules that apply to cyclists as well! Some common rules that we as responsible citizens can follow are, wearing helmets, riding on the corners of the road, using reflectors and lights. We know ‘Rules are meant to be broken’ but these are for our safety itself so why not just follow them and play our part.

Everyone here is fascinated with the trend of ‘solo riding’ but is it really good for beginner cyclists? Frankly speaking, NO! Being a newbie, you have almost little to no knowledge about cycling and so it can be really risky to fall prey to situations where you have no idea what to do. If you have a company, you know where and how to go about if something goes wrong. So always try to go on a ride with someone who at least has the basic experience of what to do when you get stuck in the middle of nowhere, or how to change the flat tires!

The Cyclones, are someone who will never recommend carrying heavy loads, especially during long-distance cycling. Cut down on some unimportant and unnecessary loads in your bag while cycling. It only increases the load on your back and can lead to complications later, but also the cycle making it vulnerable to faults may be in the journey. Some accessories that we do recommend are your Bluetooth headphones, extra water bottle, extra tee-shirt, protective eyewear, towel or tissues and of course if you’re a photographer your camera! Camera can be optional, but DSLRs should be avoided they tend to add unnecessary loads and there are chances that the DSLR might get damaged if you fall or something.