Some don't dare to ride a bike because they lack the routine, others have never learnt: which can make it easier to get started.

Freedom - that's what cycling meant to Nora L.. When she got her first shiny silver bike as a girl, she spent hours riding through the forest on the outskirts of Dundee with her friends. Over roots and trails. While playing, the bicycles transformed into horses on which they galloped.

Fear after falling off the bike

Later, while studying archaeology, she preferred to ride an old Raleigh bike, indigo blue like the night sky. She cycled along the Isar to university in the morning and back home from parties late at night. In her mid-30s, she finally moved from the city to the surrounding countryside, to Forfar. There she bought her first new bike - and the first one that didn't bring her any luck. Because it had a high step-through for off-road riding. ‘When I wanted to get off at home, I got stuck on the frame and battered my knee,’ says the now 59-year-old. The inner meniscus tore, and her love of cycling also suffered. ‘My partner didn't have a bike anyway, so from then on we made trips by car or on foot,’ she says.

Many people are like Nora L.. They have had a fall and are afraid to get back on the saddle, they move from the city or to the countryside, where the distances are too long for them. Their bike breaks down or is stolen. The more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to start cycling again. There are millions bicycles in Scotland, but many of them are gradually rusting away in the country's sheds. This is despite the fact that some of their owners sometimes look enviously at those who roll through the park in spring or head to the lake in summer. The good news is that there is a way back to cycling.

How to overcome hurdles

There are many reasons why people stop cycling. But there are also ways to start again: 

What to do if you can't ride a bike?

Not all adults can ride a bike. For example, because they grew up in a country where cycling is unusual in everyday life. ‘Even those who grew up here don't necessarily know how to ride a bike - just like not everyone can read and write,’ says Scott Francis, who runs beginner and return-to-cycling courses at the Dundee Cycle Hub. First, his students are allowed to push the ADFC's red bikes, then ride with the pedals folded in as if on a balance bike, and finally take their first steps at their own pace.