Pedal power down the decades...

IT’S a big weekend for cycling. Thousands of cyclists are expected to take to the streets of Newcastle on Sunday for the HSBC UK City Ride.

The 8.5km route starts at Exhibition Park and will take participants past some of the city’s most famous sites including the Great North Museum, Grey’s Monument, and the home of Newcastle United Football Club, St James’ Park.

Meanwhile, over on the continent, the gruelling three-week, 21-stage Tour de France begins in Dusseldorf, Germany, today.

Briton Chris Froome is going for a fourth Tour win in five years and a third in a row.

The race, across an often mountainous 2,200 miles, is surely the most challenging sporting event known to man.

For the rest of us mere mortals, a gentle pedal around the park might be the limit of our cycling ambition - but it seems more and more of us are getting on our bikes.

Looking back, the first primitive bicycles - as we would recognise them began to appear in the 1860s, and by the end of the nineteenth century a bike craze was sweeping Britain.

The years between 1900 and 1950 became a golden age for cycling.

Before the car, the bike was the main mode of transport for men and women, young and old.

Many would use a bike to get to and from work, there was a new vogue for fresh air and exercise, cycling clubs sprung up, and a new bicycle became the favourite Christmas or birthday present.

However, the early 1960s saw bike sales slump as more cars appeared on the roads, and town planning and new road schemes were designed in response to the increase in road traffic.

The Raleigh Chopper would restore the bicycle’s fortunes in the 1970s.

Today, with cycling becoming more popular than ever, increasing numbers of people are taking up cycling as an easy and efficient way to travel. According to the National Travel Survey, over five million people cycle three or more times a week.

Meanwhile, recent evidence shows commuting to and from work by bike could double if decent cycle networks were built.

Enjoy our collection of North East cycling pictures from across the decades.

Liz, Denise and Janice ono a 1970s bike contraption from the Cycling Centre, Byker

George Waller, the 1879 cycling world champion who hailed from Newcastle

A classic 1970s Raleigh Chopper

Children riding their bikes in Byker, 1980s IT’S A BIG WEEKEND FOR CYCLING... Members of the group Tyne Bikes in Newcastle, 1980s Tyneside boys test a course obstacle with their BMX bikes North East suffragettes who dared take to two wheels were pelted with mud by Durham miners in the early 20th Century