Why Cycle?
There are all sorts of reasons why people ride bikes. A bike is the most versatile of machines, getting you from A to B in the most efficient way possible. Once you’ve made the first few tentative turns of your pedals, you’ll quickly appreciate how easy and enjoyable it can be too.
Cycling is good for you!
- Cycling regularly will improve your fitness and can help you live a long and healthy life
- Riding a bike can help you maintain a healthy weight.
- Three quarters of all personal journeys are less than 5 miles long - that's half an hour on a bike.
Increasing Fitness
Your strength, stamina, aerobic fitness and general muscle function will all be improved. Cycling is a low impact activity and one of the safest ways to exercise without risk of over-exertion or strain to muscles and joints.
Lowering Risk of Heart Attack
Your heart muscles are strengthened, resting pulse is lowered and blood fat levels reduced. People taking regular physical activity suffer far less heart disease than people who don't!
Shedding Excess Weight
By burning body fat and raising your metabolic rate you can lose weight. If you undertake physical activity regularly you can enjoy a more varied diet without increasing body weight. Cycling is one of the more comfortable forms of physical activity for those who are new to exercise, allowing most people to get fit easily and safely without undue physical strain.
Reducing Stress
Anxiety, stress and depression are all alleviated, partly due to the physical activity itself, but also due to the pleasure and satisfaction of riding a bike. Cycling is convenient for short journeys, and often faster across town than other forms of transport. It's a stress free means of taking physical activity because it can form part of a daily routine. So there's no need to worry about fitting your new healthy lifestyle into an already overcrowded schedule. So go cycle - you'll feel better for it!
Cycling is good for your wallet
- Bicycles require no road tax, no MOT, no insurance, no licensing, no breakdown recovery services, and above all no fuel bills (unless you count confectionery bars!).
- A good bicycle needs at most about £50-worth of maintenance a year - less if you do a bit yourself. How much does your car need?
- A good bicycle will last for years, if not decades.
- A bicycle can be parked just about anywhere and most of the time for free.
- Twenty bicycles can be parked in the same space taken up by one car.
- To make a bicycle requires only a fraction of the materials and energy needed to make a car.
- Bicycles produce absolutely no pollution - they are a lot quieter too. When was the last time you saw a rusting, burnt-out bicycle?
- Cycling is the fastest mode of urban transport in all independent studies of the modern era - that's to say, since our towns and cities started to grind to a halt. So wave goodbye to traffic jams and public transport problems.
- Cycling delivers the fastest door-to-door journey in urban areas in every contemporary independent study, as average motor traffic speeds in our towns & cities drop to less than half the average cycle speed and the delays of walking to and from car parks, bus stops and train stations add non-productive time to your journey.
- Only walking is 100% efficient, but cycling runs a close second as the mode where you spend well over 90% of the journey time making progress from A to B. Cycling eliminates waiting at the stop for your connection, driving around looking for a parking space, and queueing to get in – and out - of a big car park.