Blog Post

The Benefits of Biking

Mick C • Sep 10, 2021

What are the benefits of biking?

After a really decent ride I sat down with a post ride drink and started to contemplate. I wondered ‘why is it that I enjoy biking so much’? I mean I really enjoy biking, specifically through the trees and out in the open away from civilisation, even though my local routes are only ever a mile or two away from people. ‘What is it that I enjoy so much’? and ‘why doesn’t everyone enjoy biking so much’? I’m sure it must be really beneficial to me. I start reading up and found some really interesting facts about the benefits of cycling.

1) Fun

It’s a fun way to get fit. The adventure and buzz you get from coasting down hills and being outdoors means you are more likely to continue to cycle regularly, compared to other physical activities that keep you indoors or require special times or places. Also, it’s as easy to do, unlike some other sports, cycling does not require high levels of physical skill. Most people know how to ride a bike and, once you learn, you don’t forget.

Cycling isn’t just about raising your heart rate and getting you breathless, unless you’re doing it on a turbo trainer. There are technical elements that you can make fun, like climbing, descending and cornering, which all teach you to use your body weight to get the bike to go where you want it to. Gaining the skills to manage these technical elements are generally fun and when you get them can provide a massive confidence boost. Plus, you might just find your abilities to manage that dodgy shopping trolley with the wonky wheels greatly improves.

2) Health and fitness

Cycling is:

Low impact – it causes less strain and injuries than most other forms of exercise.
A good muscle workout – cycling uses all of the major muscle groups as you pedal.
Good for strength and stamina – cycling increases stamina, strength and aerobic fitness.

It only takes two to four hours a week to achieve a general improvement to your health. Cycling is mainly an aerobic activity, which means that your heart, blood vessels and lungs all get a workout. You will breathe deeper, perspire and experience increased body temperature, which will improve your overall fitness level. Regular cycling stimulates and improves your heart, lungs and circulation, reducing your risk of cardiovascular diseases. Cycling strengthens your heart muscles, lowers resting pulse and reduces blood fat levels. Research also shows that people who cycle to work have two to three times less exposure to pollution than car commuters, so their lung function is improved. A Danish study conducted over 14 years with 30,000 people aged 20 to 93 years found that regular cycling protected people from heart disease.

There are so many health benefits of regular cycling which include:

increased cardiovascular fitness
increased muscle strength and flexibility
improved joint mobility
decreased stress levels
improved posture and coordination
strengthened bones
decreased body fat levels
prevention or management of disease

3) Obesity and weight control

Cycling is a good way to control or reduce weight, as it raises your metabolic rate, builds muscle and burns body fat. If you’re trying to lose weight, cycling can really help if combined with a healthy eating plan. Cycling is a comfortable form of exercise and you can change the time and intensity, it can be built up slowly and varied to suit you.

Research suggests you should be burning at least 8,400 kilojoules (about 2,000 calories) a week through exercise. Steady cycling burns about 1,200 kilojoules (about 300 calories) per hour. If you cycle twice a day, the kilojoules burnt soon add up. British research shows that a half-hour bike ride every day will burn nearly five kilograms of fat over a year.

Of course, there are other factors. The make-up of the calories you consume affects the frequency of your refuelling, as does the quality of your sleep and of course the amount of time you spend burning calories will be influenced by how much you enjoy your chosen activity. Assuming you enjoy cycling, you’ll be burning calories. And if you eat well, you should lose weight. If you decide to cycle to work, you’ve got a great excuse to add a couple of guilt free snacks to your day. Since a half hour ride to work should be burning between 200 and 500 calories, you’ve got a license to enjoy a smug second breakfast at your desk.

4) Health Risk Reduction

The rate of type 2 diabetes is increasing and is a serious public health concern. Lack of physical activity is thought to be a major reason why people develop this condition. Large-scale research in Finland found that people who cycled for more than 30 minutes per day had a 40 per cent lower risk of developing diabetes.

Many researchers have studied the relationship between exercise and cancer, especially colon and breast cancer. Research has shown that if you cycle, the chance of bowel cancer is reduced. Some evidence suggests that regular cycling reduces the risk of breast cancer.

Cycling raises your heart rate and gets the blood pumping round your body, and it burns calories, limiting the chance of your being overweight. As a result, it’s among a selection of forms of exercise recommended by the NHS as being healthy ways to cut your risk of developing major illnesses such as heart disease and cancer.

Evidence was presented in the form of a study conducted by the University of Glasgow. Researchers studied over 260,000 individuals over the course of five years and found that cycling to work can cut a riders risk of developing heart disease or cancer in half. The full study can be read here.

Dr. David Nieman and his colleagues at Appalachian State University studied 1000 adults up to the age of 85. They found that exercise had huge benefits on the health of the upper respiratory system thus reducing instances of the common cold. Nieman said: “People can knock down sick days by about 40 percent by exercising aerobically on most days of the week while at the same time receiving many other exercise-related health benefits.”

Cycling to work can reduce the time of your commute, and free you from the confines of germ infused buses and trains. There is a ‘but’. Evidence suggests that immediately after intense exercise, such as an interval training session, your immune system is lowered – but adequate recovery such as eating and sleeping well can help to reverse this .

5) Mental health

Mental health conditions such as depression, stress and anxiety can be reduced by regular bike riding. This is due to the effects of the exercise itself and because of the enjoyment that riding a bike can bring.

A study by the YMCA showed that people who had a physically active lifestyle had a wellbeing score 32 per cent higher than inactive individuals. There are so many ways that exercise can boost your mood: there’s the basic release of adrenalin and endorphins, and the improved confidence that comes from achieving new things (such as completing a sportive or getting closer to that goal).

Cycling combines physical exercise with being outdoors and exploring new views. You can ride solo, giving you time to process worries or concerns, or you can ride with a group which broadens your social circle.

6) Sleep

It probably isn’t rocket science that tiring yourself out on the bike will improve your sleep but now it’s been proven. Researchers at the University of Georgia studied men and women aged 20 to 85 over a period of 35 years, and found that a drop in fitness of 2 per cent for men and 4 per cent for women resulted in sleep problems. Dr Rodney Dishman was one of the lead authors and commented: “The steepest decline in cardiorespiratory fitness happens between ages 40 and 60. This is also when problems of sleep duration and quality are elevated.” Looking for causes behind the link the scientists suggested it could be a reduction in anxiety, brought about by exercise, that elevates the ability to sleep. Exercise also protects against weight gain with age, which is another cause of sleep dysfunction.

7) Brain Power

Exercise has been repeatedly linked to brain health and the reduction of cognitive changes that can leave us vulnerable to dementia later in life. A 2013 study found that during exercise, cyclists’ blood flow in the brain rose by 28 per cent, and up to 70 per cent in specific areas. Not only that, but after exercise, in some areas blood flow remained up by 40 per cent even after exercise. Improved blood flow is good because the red stuff delivers all sorts of goodies that keep us healthy and the study concluded that we should cycle for 45-60 minutes, at 75-85 per cent of max ‘hear rate reserve’ (max heart rate minus resting heart rate) four times a week. Nothing stopping you riding more, of course.

8) Injury / Recovery

Cycling can be done at very low intensity to begin with, if recovering from injury or illness, but can be built up to a demanding physical workout. Cycling improves strength, balance and coordination. It may also help to prevent falls and fractures. Riding a bike is an ideal form of exercise if you have osteoarthritis, because it is a low-impact exercise that places little stress on joints. However, cycling does not specifically help osteoporosis (bone-thinning disease) because it is not a weight-bearing exercise.

Many of the upshots we discuss when we talk about the benefits of cycling are exercise related. Reckon it might be easier to just go for a run? Well, running is weight bearing and therefore injury rates are higher. Cycling, by contrast to running, is not weight bearing. When scientists compared groups of exercisers, long distance runners and cyclists, they found the runners suffered 133-144 per cent more muscle damage and 256 per cent more inflammation. Whilst cycling is less likely to result in an overuse injury, they can still crop up. A professional bike fit is a good idea skimping here is a false economy if you end up spending more cash on physio.

The lack of weight bearing also means that cycling does not do as much to increase bone density as other sports so it’s a good idea to add a little strength training in to your programme

9) Can save time

As a mode of transport, cycling replaces sedentary (sitting) time spent driving motor vehicles or using trams, trains or buses with healthy exercise.

Compare these three experiences:

Get in the car, sit in traffic, queue to get into the car park, park, pay to park, arrive.
Walk to bus stop, wait for bus, complain about bus being late, get on bus (pay), watch as it takes you round-the-houses, arrive, about half a mile from your destination.
Get on the bike, filter past traffic, lock the bike, arrive.

Short journeys contribute massively to global pollution levels, and often involve a fair amount of stationary staring at the bumper in front. Get on the bike, and you’ll save on petrol or cash on public transport, as well as time.

10) Navigation skills

In the world of car sat navs and Google maps, sometimes there’s just not that much incentive to sharpen your natural sense of direction (however superior or otherwise it may be). Unless you’ve invested in a GPS cycling computer with mapping capabilities such as a Garmin, then getting out and exploring the lanes can provide essential exercise for your internal mapping capabilities, giving you (with practice) a better idea of which way is West.

11) Social

Cycling is an incredibly sociable sport. Grassroots cycling revolves around cycling club culture, which in turn revolves around the Saturday or Sunday club run: several hours of riding at an intensity that enables easy chat, interrupted only by a cafe stop (or the occasional puncture). Joining a cycling club or group is an excellent way to grow your social circle, and if you’re new to riding you’ll probably find all the maintenance and training advice you may have been looking for there, too.

So, there you go, if that hasn’t given you enough reasons to get out on the bike then I don’t know what will. I’m definitely an advocate of the health benefits of cycling. I don’t train, I just get on my bike, admire the scenery as you pass, stop for a coffee and when I get back home I feel amazing and know I can relax easier. I don’t want to jinx it, but I can’t remember the last time I went to the doctors, and some will say I’m lucky but I’m sure it has something to do with biking.

As I was sat having a drink these are the articles I read and used to help put this article together. I highly recommend them.

Cycling Weekly - The Benefits of Cycling

Healthline - Cycling Benefits

NHS - Cycling for Beginners