Firstly, a disclaimer - I don’t think of myself as ‘cyclist’. One of the oddest things about selling my car and commuting to work on a bicycle is that to others you instantly become a ‘cyclist’. Those who know me well understand that nothing could be further from the truth. I have however, over the past year come to realise that nearly every preconception I had about riding a bicycle was wrong and I now want to encourage others to give it a go too.

He continues ….

However as a GP, I also needed to be able to get to home visits during the day, and I wasn’t sure how I would go about bringing my lunch into work. Lots of barriers in my mind existed to justify not changing what I had always done. But change does not have to be big, or done all in one go, and so I picked a Tuesday morning in February 2020 and decided I would try cycling to work.

And as a GP he has a health message for everyone.

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t leave you with some medical guidance as food for thought. The Chief Medical Officer recommends that adults should be active daily, with at least 150 minutes (2.5 hours) over a week, as well as strength building activity twice a week. Yet 33% of men and 45% of women don’t reach this target and more worryingly, 1 in 5 men and 1 in 4 women do less than 30 minutes of any physical activity a week. Building activity into our daily lives, such as cycling to work or the shops, is a simple way to improve our health without needing to carve out time from our busy schedules.

It must be worth a go!

The full article Ditching the car is here. 

And the question is 'How much fruit and veg can Patrick get in has panniers? This much: