While you might immediately think of health benefits when someone mentions cycling, it also provides transportation and economic benefits. For the small investment of a bicycle which costs only a few hundred dollars, you can reap benefits that build your health and wellbeing, convey you from location to location and save you money.
You can easily combine cycling to work with your exercise routine. You’ll arrive with a clearer mind, able to think better and you’ll improve your health with immediate and long-term benefits.
The simple activity of cycling reaps you many benefits across multiple areas whether you choose a road bike, one of the nice looking fat tire bikes, an expensive Bianchi or a good mountain bike.
Sexy Benefits of Cycling
Before you laugh and roll your eyes a scientific survey from The British Heart Foundation uncovered that people find cyclists more intelligent, cooler and sexier than others. According to the survey, bicyclists are perceived as 13 percent cooler and more intelligent than other people. Nearly a quarter of the population – 23 percent – said their preferred blind-date athlete would be a cyclist. It might also have to do with the self-esteem boost you get from cycling. A hormone known as endorphins that cause happiness, also cause a boost of self-esteem and cycling is one of the cardiovascular activities that produces it.
Transportation Benefits of Cycling
The most obvious benefit is simple transportation. A bicycle helps you get from place to place. It requires much less maintenance than a vehicle. Of course, you will not travel as quickly, but you also will not have to purchase gas for the bike. You’ll also use less space with a bike than a car. You can park 20 bicycles in a single car parking space. You’ll never have to pay for parking either.
Economic Benefits of Cycling
There’s spillover here from the transportation standpoint. You will spend much less money by using a bicycle. It not only saves you from purchasing gas, but will save you from needing to purchase insurance for it as you would a car. The bike requires less investment. It takes less to manufacture one, too. A bike requires only five percent of the material and energy used to build a car. It also produces zero environmental pollution.
Health Benefits of Cycling
The greatest area of benefits lies in health improvements. People who ride a bicycle at least three times per week lower the effects of aging by 50 percent. This simple activity does this in many ways.
- Cycling protects the heart by helping to better oxygenate all of the organs and muscles. Its cardiovascular nature causes the heart to pump more blood and oxygen to all tissue.
- This activity improves respiratory capacity, so it decreases the risk of asthma.
- The pedaling movement improves blood flow which reduces the risk of edemas and varicose veins.
- It trains the joints, ligaments and tendons which reduces the risk of developing coxarthrosis, osteoporosis and tendonitis.
- Since cycling results in improved oxygenation of the brain, it can help improve your intellect.
- You’ll naturally feel happier since the cardiovascular exercise results in the production of endorphins in the brain. Endorphins are also known as the “hormones of happiness.”
- People who exercised on their way to work showed an improved ability to organize their tasks and plan their time, according to a University of Bristol study.
- Cycling helps you get better at other sports and athletic activities, such as sprinting.
- You’ll concentrate better with just 25 minutes of cycling per day added to your daily routine. It spurs creativity.
- Another brainpower boost it provides includes holding off Alzheimer’s development in the elderly and Parkinson’s Disease (PD), plus helping to improve control issues in children like attention deficit disorder, according to two 2007 studies conducted by Charles Hillman and Dr. Phil Tomporowski, respectively.
- You’ll enjoy a faster recovery from conditions such as knee pain and osteoarthritis.
- Daily cycling helps reduce your likelihood of developing high blood pressure by 31 percent.
- It probably won’t surprise you to learn that you’ll lose weight and fat by cycling. In fact, older, diabetic women can only lose visceral fat when they combine a healthy diet with exercise such as cycling.
- Men who approached middle age with a high fitness level, such as that from cycling, lowered their risk of developing colorectal and lung cancer.
- All this leads to the fact that active cyclists live longer. A study of Tour de France competitors revealed a significantly improved longevity compared to the general population. The cyclists lived to an average 81.5 years, while the general population lived to an average of 73.5 years. You do not have to compete as a professional cyclist to reap the benefits either. You just need to ride each day.
So, why not start cycling today..?!
Image Credit: Benefits of Cycling via Merfin/Shutterstock