Was 2020 “the year of the bike”?

WHILE LOCKDOWN drove many East Londoners indoors for much of the last year, the slow and staggered path to a new life has introduced some of us to a new, two-wheeled friend.

What is it about Conservative governments? In the 1980s, Norman Tebbit was urging us to get on our bikes and look for work. Last year, Boris Johnson was urging us to use our bikes to get to the work we already had. The Government planned to spend £2 billion on encouraging us to cycle or walk, to reduce the use of public transport.

Leisure Lakes Bikes decided to dig a little more deeply into the question of how we use our two-wheeled friends. It seems that we may be looking for something even more exciting than the journey to and from work and sterling efforts to take routine exercise.

•Between January and September 2020, internet searches for the term “mountain biking” increased by 120% – though Londoners had the lowest number of searches for the term out of all the home nations and regions. There are over 200,000 searches for the term each month, on average – putting mountain biking in the top five most searched for sports (with kayaking, skateboarding, go kiting and paddle boarding).

•The number of internet searches for the term “BMX” increased by 124% over the same period.

If you’re thinking about taking to the open road, many East London run cycling courses or can put you in touch with groups that do so – which can help keep you and your machine safe on the roads. If 2020 was the year of the bike, there are many health and budgetary reasons to make 2021 bigger and better.

●To see a range of bikes and related equipment, go to:
LeisureLakesBikes

●Read more about it:
Bookbike London hits 1000 milestone
Wapping rider gets his bike back

●Watch East London’s weekly news magazine programme,
live at 10pm every Tuesday and on demand all week:
The Tuesday Show