In recent months the increased cost of fuel has brought about a renewed interest in cycling, not only as a recreational activity but also as a valid means of low cost, short distance travel. Some parts of East Anglia have been recognised as places where it is both safe and enjoyable to ride a bike. Yet the fact remains that cycling on the road is not without dangers, not only from other road users but also in terms of the condition of the road itself.
East Anglia is a good place to cycle
Reports published throughout 2022, however, have shown that a number of locations within East Anglia are rated as some of the best in the country.
In February of this year, research from bike specialists Sigma Sports identified the city of Cambridge as being the best place in the UK to ride a bike. The research focused on the number of bike riders in the nation. This revealed and ranked the most popular regions for cyclists, and also the areas where riding a bike is the least popular, giving each area a bike friendliness score.
Within the report it was also disclosed that Cambridge is the only area where 51.2% of adults ride a bike at least once a month. Here’s how other areas in our region that were featured fared, including the percentage of adults riding a bike at least once a month:
- South Cambridgeshire: 5th place, 34.4%
- Huntingdonshire: 19th place, 25.4%
- East Cambridgeshire: 24th place, 24%
- St Albans: 27th place, 23.3%
- West Suffolk: 28th place, also 23.3%.
Focus on safety – and enjoy!
In May, meanwhile, Essex’s county city of Chelmsford was named by Essex Live as the safest place to ride your bike in the UK, according to new data. They report that Claims.co.uk looked at more than 12,000 cycling routes from a reputable cycling network site and analysed the number of bike accidents, average steepness, surface quality, and lighting across cycling routes, to ultimately assign a danger score for each UK city examined.
They also looked at road casualty data from 2016 to 2020 obtained from official reports released by the Department of Transport, in order to identify the number of incidents that occurred along selected major cycling paths used in the study. The data was then filtered to include only accidents that involved cyclists. Accidents were also broken up into different severity levels, from fatal to serious and slight injuries. With Bikeability courses offered nationally as well as the Big Bike Revival in Norwich, there may not be a better time, or place, to consider occasionally changing four wheels for two.
