Health Benefits of Cycling

As the UK wraps up National Bike Week (a cycling promotion campaign with 1500+ events throughout the country), following are some health statistics on the benefits of cycling (courtesy of BikeBiz.co.uk). Though most of the stats apply to the UK, I've seen similar stats indicating that the results in the USA & Canada are similar.

Grow Younger!
Regular cyclists enjoy a fitness level equal to that of a person ten years younger. (Source: National Forum for Coronary Heart Disease Foundation, Sharp)

Less Obesity
A reasonably fit female cyclist, riding on a flat road at 18 miles per hour for an hour, and weighing 125-pounds, would burn 555 calories. (Source: Dr. James Hagberg, exercise physiologist at the University of Maryland, USA).

"Obesity is costing the [UK] economy £2 billion. Cases of type 2 diabetes are increasing among our young people, and the projection is that if something is not done about obesity, the economy will have to bear £3.5 billion in related costs by 2010." Richard Caborn MP, Minister of sport, replying to a parliamentary question, 10th November 2003

Kids are getting fatter, partly through inactivity. Children's waistlines have expanded by two clothing sizes over the past 20 years, says research published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. The report also says that girls are getting fatter quicker than boys. Dr Mary Rudolf of East Leeds primary care trust said in the British Medical Journal: "This figure is all the more disturbing when one reflects on how many notches on a belt this represents." Waist size is seen as an important indicator because of the link between abnormal girth in adulthood and increased risk of heart disease. Waist circumferences were also "significantly larger" than in 1996 and had increased by an average 4cm over 20 years.

Less Heart Disease
Cycling at least twenty miles a week reduces the risk of heart disease to less than half that for non-cyclists who take no other exercise. (Source: British Heart Foundation, Morris)

If one third of all short car journeys were made by bike, national heart disease rates would fall by between 5 and 10 percent. (Source: Bikes not Fumes, CTC, 1992).

Fewer Road Fatalities
Regular cyclists have a similar annual risk of road death to regular motorists. In the UK, there is roughly one death per 20 000 years regular driving or cycling. In the rest of Europe, the annual death risk is lower for cyclists. (Source: Malcolm Wardlaw)

Lower Mortality Rates
The Copenhagen Study (2000) concluded that those who did not cycle to work experienced a 39 percent higher mortality rate than those that did commute by bike.

Fewer Injuries
Gardening is more risky than cycling! An Australian survey found 5 percent of gardeners but only 4 percent of cyclists requiring medical care for an activity related injury in the survey period. (Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 17th January 2003)