9 Reasons to Take Up Cycling

1. Helps you get fit and healthy

Cycling is a great way to get fit, whether you ride on gravel trails or cycle to work.

We’re starting with the obvious, but the health benefits of cycling are manifold and it can help you get fit. You don’t even have to be a Lycra-clad, century-riding enthusiast to unlock this benefit. Riding outdoors or indoors, or even just cycling to work can pay huge dividends for your fitness.

A 2017 study found commuting by bike is associated with improved cardiovascular functioning and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

The study also says those who cycle often or incorporate it into their physical activities are typically fitter than people who do other physical activities.

It’s also an easy way to achieve physical activity guidelines. The study shows how 90 per cent of cycle commuters and 80 per cent of mixed-mode cycling commuters hit activity guidelines. In comparison, only 54 per cent of waking commuters and approximately 50 per cent of mixed-mode walking commuters hit activity guidelines, according to the study.

2. Beats illness

Cycling can improve your immunity if you don't overdo it.

Is cycling good for you? Yes! Forget apples, riding’s the way to keep the doctor at bay.

“Moderate exercise makes immune cells more active, so they’re ready to fight off infection,” says Cath Collins, chief dietician at St George’s Hospital in London.

In fact, according to research from the University of North Carolina, people who cycle for 30 minutes, five days a week take about half as many sick days as those who do no exercise.

3. Boosts your bellows

Regular cycling will help your lungs work more efficiently.

The lungs work considerably harder than usual when you ride.

Generally, an adult cycling uses 10 times the oxygen they’d need to sit in front of the TV for the same period.

Even better, regular cycling will help strengthen your cardiovascular system over time, enabling your heart and lungs to work more efficiently and getting more oxygen where it’s needed quicker. This means you can do more exercise for less effort. How good does that sound?

4. Increases your brain power

Cycling can enhance your cognitive function, helping you at work.

Cycling will power up your grey matter. Exercise stimulates the growth of new connections between cells in cortical areas of the brain.

A UCLA study showed exercise makes it easier for the brain to grow neuronal connections. This helps with the general power of the brain but also aids the regrowth of axons on damaged cells after a nerve crush injury, the study revealed.

Exercise can also aid brain function later in life. “It boosts blood flow and oxygen to the brain, which fires and regenerates receptors, explaining how exercise helps ward off Alzheimer’s,” says Professor Arthur Kramer of the University of Illinois.

A 2019 study also found cycling improved executive functions. These are the processes that enable planning, attention focus and observation, to name just three.

5. It can make you live longer

Ageing can be slowed by cycling through the decades.

King’s College London compared more than 2,400 identical twins and found those who did the equivalent of just three 45-minute rides a week were nine years ‘biologically younger’ even after discounting other influences, such as body mass index (BMI) and smoking.

“Those who exercise regularly are at significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, all types of cancer, high blood pressure and obesity,” says Dr Lynn Cherkas, who conducted the research.

“The body becomes much more efficient at defending itself and regenerating new cells.”

6. Helps your gut

Cycling keeps you nice and regular.

According to experts from Bristol University, the benefits of cycling extend to your gut.

“Physical activity helps decrease the time it takes food to move through the large intestine, limiting the amount of water absorbed back into your body and leaving you with softer stools, which are easier to pass,” explains gastroenterologist Dr Ana Raimundo.

In addition, aerobic exercise accelerates your breathing and heart rate, which helps to stimulate the contraction of intestinal muscles. “As well as preventing you from feeling bloated, this helps protect you against bowel cancer,” Dr Raimundo says.

7. It’s good for your mental health

Getting out on the bike can be a great stress-buster.

Cycling is good for your mental health.

Neil Shah, of the Stress Management Society, says cycling “is one of the most effective treatments for stress and in many cases has been proven to be as effective as medication – if not more so”.

Shah says there is a “Mountain of scientific evidence” pointing towards cycling as a stress-busting property.

8. Reduces your carbon footprint

Ebikes are an environmentally friendly mode of transport.

20 bicycles can be parked in the same space as one car. It takes around 5 per cent of the materials and energy used to make a car to build a bike, and a bike produces zero pollution.

Bikes are efficient, too. You travel around three times as fast as walking for the same amount of energy and, taking into account the ‘fuel’ you put in your ‘engine’, you do the equivalent of 2,924 miles to the gallon.

You have your weight ratio to thank: you’re about six times heavier than your bike, but a car is 20 times heavier than you.

Riding one of the best electric bikes can prove even more environmentally friendly than non-assisted bikes.

9. Helps you avoid pollution

It may seem counterintuitive, but passengers in cars inhale more pollution than cyclists.

As well as reducing your carbon footprint, cycling will help you avoid pollution.

Researchers at Imperial College London found passengers in buses, taxis and cars inhaled substantially more pollution than cyclists and pedestrians.

On average, taxi passengers were exposed to more than 100,000 ultrafine particles – which can settle in the lungs and damage cells – per cubic centimetre. Bus passengers sucked up just under 100,000 and people in cars inhaled about 40,000.

Cyclists, meanwhile, were exposed to just 8,000 ultrafine particles per cubic centimetre. It’s thought cyclists breathe in fewer fumes because we ride at the edge of the road and, unlike drivers, aren’t directly in the line of exhaust smoke.