Active

Pump it up

It’s official: getting out on a bike can improve your bank balance as well as your fitness! Experts from Leisure Lakes Bikes share some tips.

Cycling targets a range of areas responsible for improving our vitality and longevity, from stimulating the cardiovascular system to promoting weight loss. But what’s the exact health profi le of cycling, and how can a spin around the park support both your physical and mental health?

‘Cycle for a healthy heart and bank account’, a study in the Lancet medical journal, found that people who frequently cycled to work had a 24 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. The heart is your core, it pumps blood to the entire body, providing every cell with oxygen and nutrition. Cycling is a great way to increase your heart rate and activate those processes, boosting your brain and muscle function, helping you to burn calories and improving your stamina.

While bikes are the most energy-e cient transport and healthier for the environment, they’re also good for your bank account. Cyclescheme, a provider of the Government’s Cycle to Work scheme, researched the running costs of di erent modes of transport and found that, on average, it costs £3,727 a year to run a car. To cycle it’s just £396, saving you a hefty £3,331. “Increasing your heart rate creates new neurons in the brain”

Feel those neurons fi ring!

A forest circular

Location: Primrosehill Wood, Cheshire Difficulty: Moderate Allow: 3 hours Length: 10.1km / 6.3miles

If you’ve over-indulged during the festivities, why not walk And breathe… it o on a woodland trail? This route from The Ramblers takes you around a peaceful extension takes you around a peaceful extension of Delamere Forest, well away from the crowds. A mix of back lanes, paths and forestry roads o er extensive views across Cheshire to Wales and some intriguing heritage.

Start: King’s Gate car park, Waste Lane, Kelsall

From the woodland edge of King’s Gate, turn right along the lane to reach the sharp-right bend in 400m. Turn left across the green here, with the pond to your left, directly in front of Lower Fold Cottage, to use a kissing-gate located beyond the strip of holly trees in the far corner. Follow the fenced path through the lumpy environs of Kelsborrow hillfort, created 2,000 years ago. Clear days reveal views across to the Clwydian Hills. Another kissing-gate accesses steps down into Boothsdale, named ‘Little Switzerland’ by delighted Edwardian walkers – great views stretch ahead along the sandstone ridge. Trace the ledged path along the dale’s edge, gaining fi rst a grassy track, then shortly a tarred lane at the modernist Hillside Cottage. Keep ahead on the lane to reach a T-junction, bear left up Roughlow, rising steadily to the junction with Waste Lane. Keep right along Tirley Lane and at the next bend fork right onto the hedged track, signed as the Sandstone Trail for Beeston Castle. From here the full route (available for Shire readers at ramblers.org.uk) takes

you through the forest past farms, fi elds and halls to arrive at Primrosehill Woods. Explore the chasm cut by Ice Age meltwaters 12,000 years ago, before returning up the wide forestry road to the car park.

Saving the pounds – and losing them too

Increasing your heart rate with cycling benefi ts your brain function. It acts as an antidepressant by stimulating the release of endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, and can improve your memory and learning capabilities, as it creates new neurons in the brain.

Cycling is great for weight loss as it can make you break sweat and burn calories. How many depends on a variety of factors like elevation, speed and surface. Mountain biking in the forest, for example, would burn more calories than riding a commuter bike on a cycle path. Either way, it’s a great method of getting your fi nances and fi gure in shape.

You’ll be doing your bit for the planet too

“Explore the chasm cut by Ice Age meltwaters 12,000 years ago”

forestry road to the car park.

Perfect walking on forest tracks