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Most cycle-commuters will tell you cycling to work is the best way to get to and from work and it's probably doing you some good. However a recent major study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggests that the health benefits are staggering, slashing the risk of heart disease and cancer. FTFA:
Research has consistently shown that people who are less physically active are both more likely to develop health problems like heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and to die younger. Yet there is increasing evidence that physical activity levels are on the decline.
The problem is that when there are many demands on our time, many people find prioritising exercise difficult. One answer is to multi-task by cycling or walking to work. We've just completed the largest ever study into how this affects your health.
You can read an article here at The Conversation website and you the original research is here at the BMJ website.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @02:47PM (5 children)
Denmark is also flat.
A combination of factors are what make biking practical or impractical.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:27PM (4 children)
Bah! The only factor really at work here is the mental one. People are afraid to change, or go against their perception of how the people around them will judge them. On this subject as in so many other things humans can be so distressingly akin to cattle.
Sure, if you live in a mountain monastery in northern Greece, or in a lighthouse off the coast of Maine, or the middle of Death Valley then a bike probably isn't the commuting method you'd want to choose. But how many of us actually are constrained by such unusual circumstances?
You can bike up and down hills. There are things called lower gears and thigh muscles, which are large, massy things you usually only employ as makeshift drink coasters, and gluteus maximus, which can generate a ton of force but which most people nowadays use as seating. If you really want to be pathetic and weak you can attach an electric motor to a bike to get you up the tough inclines.
Don't bike if you don't want to, but please stop niggling naysaying based on nothing real. We don't need to encourage each other to be ninnies.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @05:00PM (1 child)
Don't let reality hinder you there... There are valid reasons yo not bike, safety being #1.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @04:10PM
What good is being safe if you die of a heart attack at 50 due to lack of exercise?
It may depend on where you live, but the beneficial health effects far outweigh any dangers you face. This research was published by the British Medical Journal, so naturally would be focused on Britain. I would be surprised if there are places where cycling is a reasonable option to start with, where the health effects don't outweigh the dangers, but maybe they exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @05:17PM (1 child)
Your knees will likely go bad before you retire. Your back, feet, and hips might go too.
One day you are athletic, and the next day you are in pain and facing the near-inevitability of putting on weight because you can't exercise well. You could fall while hiking, causing your knee to twist. (done it) You could fall while skiing. I got one knee messed up while peacefully lying in bed: my wife threw herself on me, thinking it would be romantic, and *SNAP* goes the knee. She actually cracked a bone.
I now have a bit of a limp. If you don't have one yet, consider yourself lucky.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @05:29PM
I should be fine. I don't have a wife, and I never leave my bed. I only drink weak tea and eat saltine crackers. I should live longer than Aristarchus!