The Bike Blog
May was National Bike Month, and a chance to showcase the many benefits of bicycling. In the summer of 2011 and entering the second year of Naturopathic medical school, I resolved to bike. For the next four years, I rode 14.6 miles most days of the week, rain or shine. I felt strong physically and mentally and proud about the carbon neutral impact. I have excuses why I don’t commute by bike today, but these are excuses. This week I highlight the benefits of biking aimed to encourage you and I to bike.
Choosing to bike for transportation is good for our health and the environment. Biking is a low impact, cardiovascular and muscle building exercise. More times than not, the time to commute when compared to a car is comparable. Risks with biking exist, however the benefits outweigh risks (1,2,3,4).
Health Benefits:
Biking is good for your heart and cardiovascular system! Looking at the results from 13 studies, it was concluded that (indoor) cycling may improve your aerobic capacity, lower your blood pressure, improve your lipid profile, and better your body composition (5)!
Biking may decrease risk of cancer! Observational studies reveal that in middle-aged to elderly people, those who commute by bike may decrease their risk of death, death by cancer, and risk of getting cancer (6).
Biking helps your brain function! When participants aged 50-83 rode their bikes outdoors, three times a week for 30 minutes, there was an improvement in brain function tests as compared to non bikers (7).
The caveat. Unfortunately biking along traffic exposes the rider to vehicular exhaust and particulate matter that is bad for the lungs. Breathing in exhaust from vehicles causes lung inflammation (8) and is associated with unwanted outcomes like lung cancer (9). To minimize the risk, it’s best to avoid streets with heavy traffic. I’m a big fan of Portland’s bike route infrastructure and using these thought-out bike paths decreases risk of injury (10) and exposure to traffic related air pollution (11).
Environmental Benefits:
Reduces carbon emissions. In a report put out by UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, it showed that a world with a dramatic increase in cycling could save society $24 trillion cumulatively between 2015 and 2050, and cut CO2 emissions by 11% in 2050 as compared to a scenario without a strong cycling emphasis (12).
With just a moderate increase in bicycling, we could save (13):
6-14 million tons of CO2
700 million to 1.6 billion gallons of fuel
Biking is exercise and benefits humanity and the earth as a whole. By swapping your sedentary car time for active cycling, we effectively intervene in the aging process because we know that exercise reduces the harmful effects of aging (14). Just be sure to wear your sunscreen and bike on the designated bike routes.
Resources
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01441647.2015.1057877
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0211779
https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/us-bicycle-route-system/benefits-and-building-support/environmental-impact/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457745/