The 20 best reasons to ride a bike: it makes you more creative, you will live longer, or lose weight

When asked why we ride a bike, many of us would not be able to give a specific answer. It is a sport that for those who have been practicing it for a long time, it becomes almost a way of life. People who cannot understand their day-to-day without the bike. Those who have not tried cycling miss out on a lot of benefits that its practice brings. If you want to encourage someone to try cycling, here are 20 reasons to convince them.

Get in shape

Although not an exclusive benefit of cycling but of sports practice in general, cycling improves our physical condition and our overall health. However, cycling has other advantages over other mainstream sports such as running or team sports: it is a sport with minimal impact so our joints do not suffer the rigors of its practice. Besides, the efficiency of bicycles allows us to adjust the level of effort, making the progression curve very easy to follow.

Fewer diseases

Beyond the general health benefits, helping to reduce cholesterol, keep fat at bay, or lower blood pressure, moderate exercise has a direct impact on improving the efficiency of the immune system, as various studies show. This translates into getting sick less often than an inactive person.

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Improves lung capacity

The pollution of our cities, combined with other environmental factors, has caused the incidence of various respiratory diseases such as asthma to increase significantly in recent times. Endurance sports like cycling can be a perfect way to combat the effects of these conditions as our lung capacity increases with training, making it easier to cope with asthma crises or other symptoms in normal life.

Extends life

Although we may feel that our life is being taken away when our group mates stretch our necks on weekend outings, the truth is that cycling helps us live longer, as affirmed by a study from King's College London that compared 2,400 identical twins and found that those who engage in sports activity were biologically younger. The reasons given by the researchers are that exercise helps the body be more efficient in defending itself against diseases and is able to regenerate its cells more quickly.

Aids mental health

Various mental health problems, a real plague in our days, can be improved thanks to cycling, which, thanks to the increase in the production of certain hormones such as endorphins, can act as a natural antidepressant. Apart from that, different problems that overwhelm us and cause anxiety are often seen differently when we reflect on them while pedaling calmly or, directly, we can escape from them with a high-intensity session that forces us to focus on the effort we are making, on the watts, or on catching that cyclist we see in the distance.

It is sustainable

The fact that climate change is a reality has put the focus on the use of sustainable forms of transportation that allow us to reduce our carbon footprint. Changing the car for the bike in many of our trips will be our contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It may not be much but, in the end, it is like marginal gains, every little bit helps.

Improves your sex life

It is true that cycling has often been blamed for harming sexual health. A stigma that dates back to times when biomechanics were not as developed and both the position on the bike and the existing saddles became a real torture for the sexual organs. However, if we solve this by using the right equipment and a correct position, according to various experts, cycling has among its effects the increase in sexual desire, reducing the incidence of impotence in men over 50 and delaying menopause in women.

Helps reduce stress

The daily stress caused by work or various daily tasks can become unmanageable for many people. Introducing cycling into our routine helps us improve the management of our daily time, precisely to be able to accommodate those training sessions. Besides, it becomes our daily break that allows us to disconnect from all those things that generate stress for us so that we can continue the day with renewed energy.

Makes it easier to lose weight

Overweight and obesity are other major problems of our time. Losing weight with the current lifestyle can become an odyssey between excessive calorie intake, junk food, or lack of control in eating. Besides, many times weight loss diets fail because the normal level of activity makes it necessary to greatly reduce food intake to achieve effective weight loss. Riding a bike will make us much more disciplined with food when we realize that with less weight we enjoy more and perform better. This makes us not only start taking care of what we eat but also, the extra caloric expenditure that cycling entails allows us to ingest sufficient amounts so as not to suffer from the weight loss process.

Beneficial for other sports

For many people, cycling is not the end but a parallel activity done for pure enjoyment. However, cycling can be very useful for training in other sports by allowing us to increase cardiovascular capacity in a very non-aggressive way. For example, a trained cyclist who practices team sports has a physical base that allows them to assimilate a higher volume of training and have better recovery. Runners have long discovered that cycling can replace some of their long runs, especially if they are preparing for events like the marathon that require a large volume of training, as well as serving to maintain sports activity when they suffer an injury as it is a very non-aggressive sport.

It is a legal drug

Many people are scared when comparing the effects of endorphins with those of opioids, but the reality is that the hormone secretion generated by sports practice in general and cycling in particular would have effects comparable to certain narcotic substances. However, be careful because it is a sensation that hooks and we can, without being aware of it, end up becoming addicted to cycling.

Helps you sleep better

Cycling has the effect of adjusting cortisol levels, a hormone that makes it difficult to fall asleep. Besides, among the substances that our body secretes when we ride a bike is serotonin, which reduces anxiety and helps us fall asleep. We just have to be careful with excessively hard workouts that could make it difficult to sleep and not postpone the training until the last minute so that the time to go to bed does not come when the body is still fully active after the effort made.

A great way to make friends

Cycling is a sport that is much more enjoyable in company, in fact, the concept of a group ride does not exist in many other sports. As soon as we start riding, we will meet people who do similar routes to ours, we can join the club in our city to start sharing outings with people who over time become true friends. And we must not forget the large cycling community that we find on social networks, forums, or telegram groups where we will find others with the same concerns regarding cycling.

Perfect for discovering other places

When traveling, taking the bike allows us not only to cover more ground than if we were just visiting certain places but also to discover the terrain from a perspective that allows us to enjoy the places we travel to in a much more intense way than if we were mere tourists. The culmination of discovering places by bike is the bikepacking modality in which our bike becomes our means of transportation and home on our backs, making the journey itself a whole experience.

Improves intestinal function

Those who suffer from intestinal problems or irregularity can also benefit from cycling. According to various studies, sports practice helps reduce the time it takes for food residues to pass through the large intestine, resulting in less water being absorbed from them, making them easier to evacuate.

Save money on your trips

Turning our bike into our daily means of transportation to go to work is not only beneficial for the environment but also for our wallet. If we give up the car in favor of the bike, our bank account will notice it at the end of the month since very few are really aware of how much they spend on gasoline to, in many cases, make trips that in terms of distance and time would be perfectly manageable by bike.

Helps in pregnancy

It is widely proven that practicing sports, moderately, during pregnancy has beneficial effects on it. In fact, there are studies that affirm that mothers who practiced sports during pregnancy have an easier and less complicated delivery. Obviously, we are talking about cycling in safe conditions and with a moderate level of intensity.

Builds self-confidence

When a person is able to pedal for more than 100 kilometers or complete a route that includes tremendous mountain climbs, they feel capable of anything when they get home. A feeling that only reinforces self-confidence and makes us feel that we can face, not only on the bike, but also in our day-to-day, any challenge we set for ourselves.

Improves your psychomotor skills

Over the years, most people become clumsier in their movements or daily tasks. They will say it is because of age, but those who ride a bike, an activity that requires balance and mastery of the machine, can improve psychomotor skills, which also has an effect on our daily life, making us more capable for much longer.

Makes you happy

Everything we have talked about: endorphins, health, friends, etc. ultimately boils down to the fact that cycling simply makes us happy with very little. Forgetting all the problems, enjoying dreamy environments, sharing efforts with friends, the beer after the ride, the photo at the top of a mountain pass, overcoming that tough ride. All these things in the end are small pills that fill our lives with moments of true enjoyment.