On Your Bike
Fife Cycle Park near Lochgelly is an invaluable addition to the county’s thriving outdoor scene
Find out why fabulous Fife is a favourite destination for Scotland’s cyclists
EVEN as a Fife resident – and a big fan of my home county – I’m surprised to find out it’s Scotland’s most popular region for walkers and cyclists.
Surely it would be Lochaber? Or Perthshire? Or around Aviemore?
“You’d never think it, but we’ve held that title for years!” says Sarah Roxburgh, from Fife Cycle Park. “It’s the accessibility – less than an hour and a half away from most people in Scotland.”
Sarah Roxburgh is the community use team manager at Fife Cycle Park and I’m sitting in the park’s clubhouse chatting to her, cycle park supervisor Joe Fowkes and the active communities team manager Emma Broadhurst.
The park was born out of a conversation with Scottish Cycling about the need for a facility and was advanced with the help of a former Fife councillor.
What Fife offers, Sarah explains, is variety. Visitors can travel from a sandy
beach to a decent inland hill in no time at all, and the park is a great new addition to what the region offers.
“We’re in the heartlands of Fife,” she says, “and part of the hope is that it’ll help bring people into the area – and they’ll want to stay a bit longer and explore.”
Fife Cycle Park has certainly got off to a good start. As well as regularly hosting events for cycling clubs from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dunfermline, they’ve had visitors travel from as far afield as Newcastle to enjoy the track.
But it’s not just ardent cycling fans looking to set personal records that are welcome, and that’s something the team is keen to stress.
“The thing that makes us unique is that it’s not just a cycling facility, but a community facility,” Emma says. “It’s not only for elite riders. It’s for everyone.”
The schedule says as much. Monday evenings see the local Nordic Ski Club visit to practise on roller skates, kids’ classes run throughout the week and there are development sessions for adults to improve confidence on a road-like environment without the stress of traffic.
It’s been a hit from the off. When I visited, the park was just about to celebrate its first birthday.
“It’s not just for elite riders. It’s for everyone ”
“When we posted that news online, we had 12,000 reactions,” Joe says – a clear indicator of how many people are engaging with the park already.
One of the park’s real assets is the clubhouse. The bright, clean building houses a large social space, plus changing rooms with showers and accessible toilets.
Next door is Lochgelly High School, which is also a community-use building, hosting classes and events in evenings and at the weekend.
Working with schools is a huge part of the park’s ethos, and it’s such an advantage for young learners to build up their confidence in a safe space. A wee figure of eight circuit with road markings helps the coaches explain the rules of the road to the children.
Joe points out that we’re also only a short hop from the Lochore Meadows Country Park, too, which has an Outdoor Education Centre and a number of its own off-road trails. Visitors can hire bikes from the park to visit them.
Despite a reasonably brisk wind, I’m feeling guilty that so far my visit has been all talk and no cycling. Plus there’s a fair few folk arriving for this evening’s Triathlon meeting already, and I want to get my spin in before these fit athletes come out and show me up.
Soon I’m out on the track and enjoying the traffic and pothole-free cycling experience. I’m trying to figure out how to link up all the different possible routes to get the full mile-long lap experience.
The park is not excessively hilly, but the northern side is a good bit lower than the southern end, so there’s ample chance for new riders to use some of their gear range. Getting used to your gears until they become second nature is a good idea before you take to the roads.
I remember clearly the gap between learning to cycle in the playground and heading on to the roads. This park offers a brilliant bridge between the two – and much more besides.
Visit cyclepark.fife.scot for more.