10 Ways to Stay Safe While Cycling

10 Ways to Stay Safe While Cycling

you have the ability to limit the risk of a bicycle accident. Here are ten things you can do to keep yourself safe when you’re sharing the road.

1. Wear a Helmet

Not all states require bicyclists to wear a helmet. However, research shows that wearing a helmet can reduce the risk of a serious injury by 70 percent. Head injuries are the leading cause of fatal bike accidents. Unfortunately, 97 percent of victims do not wear helmets. Simply wearing a helmet can prevent many unintentional bike deaths.

2. Check Your Equipment Before You Ride

Bike accidents aren’t always caused by a distracted driver or an unexpected bump in the road. Bicycle equipment malfunctions contribute to a significant number of crashes. You can reduce the risk of an equipment-related accident by checking your bike, helmet, and gear before you hit the road.

Make sure your tires are properly inflated. Check your reflectors and lights to make sure that they’re working. Inspect your chains and gears for any defects, fractures, or issues. These simple steps can prevent an accident that could change your life.

3. Wear Reflective Materials

A leading cause of bike accidents is limited visibility. If a driver cannot see you, an accident is more likely to occur. This is particularly true at intersections when your paths are likely to cross. While installing reflectors on your bike can help, it’s also important to wear bright and/or reflective clothing. Increasing your visibility will reduce the risk of a bike accident.

4. Keep Your Hands on the Bike

You may have a great sense of balance. This may allow you to ride your bike without keeping any hands on the handlebars. Think twice before riding hands-free, particularly when you’re sharing the road with other vehicles. If your hands aren’t on the bike, it will take you much longer to react to unexpected circumstances, such as a pedestrian in your path or debris in the road. As a result, you’re more likely to either fall off of your bike or cause an accident because you cannot brake in time.

5. Know Your Signals and Use Them

Many bike accidents occur at or near an intersection. It’s important to make sure that you’re fully familiar with bike hand signals. You need to be able to communicate with nearby drivers and other cyclists. A driver cannot anticipate what you’re going to do unless you provide fair warning. Make sure that your hand signals are obvious and clear to others. Accidents are less likely to happen when everyone on the road is on the same page.

6. Limit Your Distractions

Distracted driving is a leading cause of fatal car accidents in Ghana. Unsurprisingly, it can be just as dangerous to ride a bike while distracted. In fact, since you’re already more vulnerable to serious injury and death, distracted cycling can be even riskier.

Riding a bike is a fantastic experience. You get to exercise and get fresh air. It’s also an opportunity to disconnect and take a break from the frenzy of your day-to-day life. 

Take full advantage of your bike ride by stashing electronics in your bag or pocket. If you need to drink, opt for a water bottle that’s easy to operate with one hand. Keeping your eyes on the road and tuning into your surroundings will help to keep you safe.

7. Ride As If You’re In a Car

You may be able to reduce the likelihood of an accident if you act like you’re driving a car. Why? Studies show that drivers become used to the patterns and behaviors of vehicles on the road. Cars don’t weave in and out of traffic, ignore traffic signals, or cut across multiple lanes at once. When you ride a bike, it’s easier to do these things. However, you’re more likely to catch a driver by surprise or limit your visibility when you do. Keep yourself safe by riding predictably and mimicking the behaviors of larger vehicles whenever appropriate.

8. Ride With the Flow of Traffic

Always ride your bike with the flow of traffic. In other words, travel in the same direction as other vehicles on the road. Accidents are much more likely to happen when you go against the grain. If an accident does happen when you’re riding against the flow of traffic, you’re more likely to be at fault for the crash. This can prevent or reduce a financial recovery.

9. Stay Off of the Sidewalks

Sidewalks may seem like a safe alternative when you’re riding alongside larger vehicles. However, sidewalk biking can be incredibly dangerous for a few reasons. First, sidewalks belong to pedestrians. You’re more likely to crash into a pedestrian or lose control when the sidewalks are crowded. Second, sidewalk pavement is more likely to be uneven than asphalt on the road. You can hit a crack or bump in the sidewalk and go flying. Finally, cars don’t expect to see a bicyclist enter the road from a sidewalk. You’re more likely to take a driver by surprise and get hit when you use the sidewalk. Remember, drivers are used to behaviors of other cars.

10. Use Dedicated Bike Lanes

An increasing number of cities and municipalities across the country are embracing dedicated bike infrastructure, which is the goal of the "Let's go BikeRide". Bike lanes of all varieties will be popping up across the country. 

Whenever you see a bike lane, make sure to use it.

If bike lanes are used, towns are more likely to invest in more dedicated bicycle infrastructure. This can go a long way in keeping you and others safe when you’re sharing the road.

source: peoplepoweredmovement

contact:

bikerideghana@gmail.com

Tips for Maintaining Good Riding....

Act Sustainably with Resposibility

Our industry excels at making us want to buy ever more products. Whether it’s to have the most current bike, the trendiest accessories, or the latest gizmo to make our riding better, or something else. While this is the obvious course for any industry looking to stay alive and profitable, it doesn’t always align with the modern goal of protecting our resources, whether they are raw materials or the finished products themselves. In our little niche of bikes, there’s a depressingly large carbon footprint involved in the creation and delivery of the products we use. And it’s easier than ever to forget that each of us plays a role in how much is consumed or wasted along the way. If we each put some thought into a few small things, we can combat the increasing trend of our “throwaway” society.

Here are three areas to consider:

1. Make your gear last longer

This is a great goal if you love your bike and want to keep it for many years, but it still applies even if you buy and sell bikes frequently. Either way, there are ways to keep your bike running well and prevent unnecessary parts replacement while you own it.

-Don’t use too much chain lube. First of all, it wastes lubricant. But more significantly, the sticky coating of excess lube attracts dirt, which then wears out your drivetrain prematurely. Use a light application of the appropriate lube for your weather and conditions, and make sure to wipe away any excess that’s clinging onto the outside of the chain, where it’s not serving any lubricant purpose, anyway.

–Replace your chain at the first measurable sign of wear. This may sound counterproductive but bear with me. Yes, you will consume a couple more chains in a year (depending on how much you ride), but the rest of your drivetrain — the expensive, materials-intensive parts — will last much longer. You can go quite some time on the same cassette and chainrings if you keep your chain fresh. So, how do you know when to replace it? Bike shops have tools that will measure the elongation (or “stretch”) of the chain and can establish when that base level of wear has occurred. In the case of newer 12-speed chains, which are more stretch-resistant, a more reliable technique is to pay attention to the side-to-side flexibility of the chain. A noticeable increase in flex can let you know it’s time to replace it, as is a degradation in shifting that has no other cause.

-Keep tires in circulation longer. When your tires wear down, move the front tire to the rear and only replace the front. Then see if another bike can use the old tire — a townie bike, or another steed that has fewer traction demands.

-And finally, clothing-related: Don’t wash your jerseys, bibs, etc. in harsh or highly fragrant detergents. These will cause your expensive clothing to break down prematurely and require replacement. Or use a detergent for technical apparel. Plus, only some garments state low heat in the dryer on the care labels. Those are typically DWR treated fabrics, where the heat reactivates the coating. Let’s be honest, technical fabrics are designed to dry fast, let them hang dry while you save energy and your gear.

bikerideghana@gmail.com
+233 544294746

Ride on the Rim

I Just Want To Ride A Bicycle

This is a much video to watch for more inspiration on riding on the rim....

I Just Want To Ride

Lael Wilcox loves the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

She loves the climbing. Its pass after pass. She loves the roads. They’re not too technical. 

She loves the landscapes. Traveling from Canada to Mexico, all on your bike. 

The Tour Divide, it’s her kind of race and she’s done it twice before.

The 2019 edition was set to be truly unique as she attempted to be the first woman to be the overall winner of the race. 

But would the weather cooperate? Would the race and route play out as it had in her previous attempts?

Follow along as Lael takes on the most notable bikepacking route in the world and has to overcome natural and human barriers to embrace the true reasons for why she rides and inspires others to ride. Go Lael.

credit: pearl izumi

bikerideghana@gmail.com
+233 544294746

Freedom to Pedal

FREEDOM TO PEDAL

Most of us can remember the first time we rode a bike, many of us can remember it vividly. It’s one of those significant milestones of early childhood that often becomes family lore as well- i.e., “that time Dad pushed Jane down the hill.” From my own childhood, maybe age 5, I recall plans for an afternoon playdate with two friends who had already ditched the training wheels- and only one morning for me to join the two-wheeler club! I WOULD ride my bike in time for that playdate, even if it meant arriving a bit battered and bruised, applying the fierce determination, independence, and stubbornness that has persisted to this day.

Fast forward 30 years and my own daughter’s first solo roll on two wheels involved a tumble into a drainage ditch alongside our driveway in the dark–where she insisted on practicing, alone. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Whether or not you can remember the details of learning to ride your bike, you can probably still remember how you felt–like you could conquer the world! At the very least, you could get around the world yourself, using your own two legs. If not the world, well, the neighborhood pool and your best friend’s house. You could choose your own adventure and make it happen! It is my sincere desire that EVERY kid get to experience the power of the bicycle- independence, freedom, adventure, self-sufficiency, and fun.

I launched PedalPower Kids when I realized so many kids were not learning to ride and were not experiencing the power of life on a bike as part of their childhoods. The reasons are numerous and complex and impact children of all socioeconomic levels, in cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the US. It’s infrastructure, and technology, and overscheduling, and academic pressures, and safety/crime concerns–so many reasons to list. Yet in other parts of the world, where digital distractions also exist, riding bikes is still a daily part of life for kids, like in the Netherlands, where my family was lucky enough to take a cycling trip this past summer. I might not be able to turn Annapolis, Maryland into Amsterdam overnight, but I’m doing everything I can to make childhood around here a little more Dutch. Less than two years in, I see fuller bike racks at schools, neighborhood bike gangs, and families out and about on our local trails.

It’s hard to put into words what it feels like to bear witness to a child struggling to ride, facing big fears, falling and failing, and then getting back up again and trying once more. Then twice more. Then, however, many more times it takes. Brene Brown says, “Daring greatly is being brave and afraid every minute of the day at the exact same time.” And I think that about sums it up. Our new bike riders who have dared greatly now know that they can do hard things. And they get to take that new knowledge and confidence with them to class, in peer interactions, on the sports field, and at home.

Parents often ask me of little ones what can they do to get their kiddos riding early. Balance is the fundamental skill required to ride a bicycle, and our programs are all balance-based. So, get your toddler on a balance bike. But here’s the most crucial piece of advice: let them ride the bike! Developmentally, this means that they’ll ride in stages. These stages might be maddeningly slow to you fully capable cyclists out there, give those kids time to develop their riding. Progression occurs as they develop balance but more so with the development of trust. Trust in the bike, trust in their abilities, and trust that you, as a parent, will keep them safe. Again, this does not mean doing it for them. The progression on a balance bike goes from simply walking with the bike to starting to stay seated and run, and then eventually gliding and balancing for longer and longer stretches.

Just as training wheels are a deterrent to the development of balance and core strength, parents need to be mindful to leave the bike handling to their little rider. A push to help simulate a glide is great, an uneven one-handed hold on a handlebar, not so much. Go explore with your kiddos on balance bikes, and you’ll soon find that they are gliding faster than you can walk.
Credit: pearlizumi

Kids Pedal to Freedom

bikerideghana@gmail.com
+233 544294746

Let's go BikeRide Network

This network is for all bike lover's, who wanted a paradigm shift from the normal way of commuting.
We ride for fun, to learn, do business and network for good healthy lifestyles.

We also create business opportunities, create bike fun zones for meeting to ride. We also advocate for more safe bike lanes.

When we change our mindset, we could change the way we commute in our cities without a car.

Accidents will be less common, clean cities, smart communities, clean air to breath etc.

Our streets should be designed along the needs of the people. It shouldn't be one way.

Provisions should be made for cycling, pedestrian walkways, and the disable.

We advocate, for a change.

Ghana must model its road infrastructure, streets to that of Amsterdam etc. Our roads infrastructure needs an overhaul.

Ghana needs a vision for a bikable cities instead of cars all the time.

Students and workers must be encouraged to ride bicycles to work and school.

Bicycle importation duties should be free to encourage bicycle riding in our communities for good health.

The government needs to declare a bicyle day just as we have a sanitation day.

When you change the street you change the world.

Join this network for a healthy lifestyle and advocate for change.

Advantages of cycling:

1. Cycling can help to protect you from serious diseases such as stroke, heart attack, some cancers, depression, diabetics, obesity and athritis
2. Riding a bike is healthy, fun and a low-impact form of exercise for all ages.
3. Cycling is easy to fit into your daily routine by riding to the shops, park, school or work.

Now, regular cycling is mainly an aerobic activity, which means that your heart, blood vessels and lungs all get a workout.
You will breath deeper, perspire and experience increased body temperature, which will improve your overall fitness level.

The health benefit of regular cycling include:

1. Increased cardiovascular fitness
2. Increased muscle strength and flexibility
3. Improved joint mobility
4. Decreased stress level
5. Improved posture and coordination
6. Strengthened bones
7. Decreased body fat level
8. Prevention of management of disease and
9 Reduced anxiety and depression.


Lets meet to cycle for good health.
This is a good initiative we must all embrace it.

Join now!!!




Create a hashtag:
Lets go BikeRide
#letsgoBikeRide
letsgobikeride.blogspot.com
bikerideghana@gmail.com
+ 233 544294746