Why Weight/Live Well Ride

If you're fairly confident on your bike and ready to broaden your cycling horizons, our Steady rides are ideal. At a comfortable pace, and possibly with some modest hills along the way, rides take place on mainly quiet roads with plenty of sights along the way. Rides are between 6 and 10 miles long, at a moderate pace of between 7 and 10 miles an hour. Starting out at The Cycle Hub this mostly traffic free route takes us along the pretty green corridoor of cycle route 72 through and out onto The Quayside. This may be the centre of Newcastle Gateshead but you'll be surrounded by plenty of green space and the steely blue of the river. Lots of photo opportunities today including stunning views up the river of the iconic Millennium, Tyne and Swing Bridges. We'll take the traffic free riverside path along the Tyne up to Scotwood and cross over the bridge to join Hadrian's Way route 14 crossing over the Derwent and winding past the Metrocentre still on cyclepaths. Our destination is the 526-metre long Dunston Staiths. A Scheduled Ancient Monument, believed to be the largest timber structure in Europe. We stop for a cuppa at the Staiths Cafe giving us a great view of this intruiging piece North Eastern Railway built to allow coal from collieries in Gateshead and County Durham to be loaded on to ships bound for London and the continent. The demise of the coal industry finally saw it close in 1982 , falling into disrepair until is recent renovation. We head back on the Gateshead riverside taking in some of the sculpture trail. We turn past The Sage and The Baltic and ride over the beautiful Millennium Bridge back past The Cycle Hub Mostly traffic free and on cycle path, and mostly flat, with just a few short sections on quiet road.