The Underlying Benefits of Biking
By Richard Luo
A large handful of informative blogs and articles published by outdoor enthusiasts and knowledgeable experts love to dive into topics to help people better explore their exercising hobbies. For example, a quick search of “Bikes” on Google takes you to articles such as “Methods to Bike Fast” or “The Best Biking Brands” followed by a bunch of websites from companies selling their products. However, even if you do thoroughly examine all of the first 50 search results, you may still ask yourself, what’s so good about biking? Instead of spewing overused answers such as “exercise is good” or “it’s good for your health", here’s some things your parents might not have thought of.
#1 Gains
Consistent biking comes with rewards, and while it may not come in the form of a paycheck, it can do you one better; becoming ingrained in our bodies. For example, many people commonly refer to professional bikers with very refined thighs as “tree trunks”. However, you may be thinking, “psssht, I’ll just do squats”, but let me tell you why biking is better. For starters, biking is just more fun. While biking, you have abundant targets to aim for such as climbing an upcoming hill, rolling downhill as fast as possible while not crashing, focusing on sharp turns, or simply just getting to wherever you want to go. On the other hand, personally, I feel doing 10 squats 6 times a day while carrying a 20 pound weight is less appealing. So if you’re interested in finding an enjoyable way to start getting gains, I recommend biking.
#2 Transportation
Within a few months or even weeks of biking, you’ll find that you can now bike faster than before. And with this new speed, you’ll be able to zoom to places you had only previously visited by car. For example, if you live 3 or 4 miles away from school, instead of making your parents drive you, whip out your bike, and go there yourself. As long as your one-way trip by bike takes less time than your driver's round trip (drop you off then go back home), your family will be saving time.
But even if you aren’t that fast yet, your driver will appreciate you. So next time, they may be less grumpy about carpool duty seeing that you’ve already been making an effort. Finally, for those who are able to drive themselves and may not care about others, you’ll be damaging the environment with all your emissions. And within time, even narcissists will realize that they care about something more than themselves: breathing. So at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re capable of, a greater inclination towards biking will be beneficial for everyone.
At this point, if you’re still unconvinced about the benefits of biking and still don’t see how cool it is, I recommend going to the doctor’s to get checked out. But for the majority out there, while biking may be a fun, leisure activity, it can also be dangerous, so be sure to follow regulations and always wear a helmet. As always, be safe and have fun.