In this post, I will give you details of why I should start biking to work and also share my experience of using my mountain bike as a means of transportation over the past few months.
It was last September that I had a sort of reality check and realized that I was not in my best physical shape. For years I’ve been stuck in office jobs where I generally spend at least eight hours sitting at a desk in front of a computer monitor all day. Over time, this had started to affect me when I noticed that I was not as physically active as I should have been and that I had started to gain weight.
So I decided I needed to take some action before this got out of hand. I typically participated in various forms of exercise, including mountain biking and the gym in my spare time. But this was not enough; I needed to be active every day, but time was so limited that I couldn’t even put in a couple of minutes a day to exercise on my schedule.
I finally found a solution; riding a bike to and from work every day. So, I went to a bike shop in the market and bought a new bike specifically to use on the go. The bike I bought was one of those cheap bikes, nothing special or from any of the best mountain bike brands. The bike I bought also came fully stocked with gears, but you can use a single speed mountain bike if you wish. And the best part is that I bought this bike for less than $ 200.
It has been over five months since I used my mountain bike for transportation to and from work and I can tell you that it is extremely fun and has a ton of benefits including:
Reduced cost
Riding a bike is much cheaper than driving or using public transportation, so the savings from using your bike for transportation can add up over a long period of time. It will cost you less to keep your bike running efficiently than it does to keep your car running smoothly. The most common costs encountered when making cycling a regular habit are tire punctures, replacement of basic bike parts that are cheap (you can easily find cheap or used bike parts for sale at the bike shop neighborhood) and perform a full maintenance every year that cannot be compared to the maintenance costs of a motor vehicle.
Better health
I can guarantee one hundred percent that you will see significant health benefits by making cycling your means of transportation to work. In the past few months, I’ve been able to burn off excess body fat, gain firmer abs, and build my leg muscles, all after spending fifteen to thirty minutes a day at work. On top of that, you generally feel good as your body can inhale the fresh air while on the road.
Efficiency
If you live just minutes from your workplace, riding a bike can save you more time than public transportation or driving. For example, I typically leave work at 4:30 pm and it takes me between 45 minutes to an hour to get home when I use public transportation. Since I switched to my mountain bike, I can get home before 5:00 PM every day.
Environmentally clean
By choosing to bike to work every day, you are making a big impact on the planet by reducing carbon emissions from driving. Not only are you receiving personal benefits, but you are making the world cleaner and greener with each passing day.
I urge all of you to make the positive decision for yourself and our planet by switching to cycling as your form of transportation on a daily basis. As you go along, you will find that there are many more benefits beyond what I have mentioned in this post.