The primary benefit I saw was the fitness as discussed in my previous blog. But there are other benefits that might interest others.
In no particular order I have listed what I think are the benefits of commuting by cycling.
Health and fitness:
For cycling, your body energy is the fuel and heart is the engine. Hence good cycling keeps the heart healthy and exercises all parts of the body.
Feel Fresh
In car I take about 60mins to travel 15kms through the Bangalore traffic. That means about 30mins I sit idle at signals or get frustrated at slow pace of traffic. So when I reach office or home my mind is restless and tired. When I’m on cyle, balancing and agility keeps my mind busy thinking of presence. When your mind is in the state of presence, you feel fresh, active, agile and peaceful. Read the book - http://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230602689&sr=1-1
I actually have felt the freshness and less tired when I reach home or office on cycle.
Eat what you like
This is one of the primary reasons I took up commuting by cycle. I can not resist yummy chocolates, sweets that are in plenty in our diet. Every weekend there is some function to attend to. And every often somebody returns from onsite with foreign chocolates or somebody comes from thirupathi prasadam. Intake should be around 2000KCals per day if BMI is normal. One Samosa or mysore pak if I take I need to skip my meal. But I take couple of them almost everyday. So now with some cycling around everyday I burn enough cals. So I think it should be ok to eat what I like!
Time saver
In most cases it is either equal or less than car commuting time from home to office. In my case I travel from JP Nagar 1st phase to GVC mapped at – http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105755152128773253825.00045d9e05628a5fb2648&ll=12.968011,77.605287&spn=0.371368,0.725098&z=11
I take about 45mins to 60mins depending upon the traffic. Signals are the hurdles for the cars, similarly main roads crossings are the hurdles for the bikers. The main time savers for bikers are the short cuts which save about 10-15% distance, maneuvering through the traffic clog at main junctions and crossing like a pedestrian at traffic lights. But I spend about 5-10mins crossing the main roads on my way at Hosur road crossing, Bannerghatta crossing, and Inner ring road crossing in front of Dell office.
Also as our lazy lifestyle demands some kind of exercise, you need to set aside some 7-8hrs of exercise in a week. And if you are exercising while commuting that is saved for some blogging .
Clean and Green Environment
Needless to say you do contribute your bit for saving the environment.
Reduces noise pollution, air pollution. No depletion of fossil fuel reserves. You save that much space on the road to just occupy enough for yourself only not for the entire car.
Cost savings
Cost savings can also be worked out based on your fuel expenditure for office commute. For me if I do 3 days a week consistently I can save probably upto 2000Rs per month. You can count in also the gym fee savings. Also gym builds up some muscles which if you don’t maintain will become too sexy..
City exploration
If you are a cycling commuter then you are not limited by choice of roads. You can keep exploring the shortest route by going through less known roads, gullies, areas you have never seen before. It avoids city maddening traffic also although not completely.
Disadvantages
Safety and security while driving
The biggest fear is to be run over by an errand bus. In car accidents keep happening denting and scratching your car resulting in some road rage, but nothing happens to you. Little careless ness while riding bicycle is also dangerous. You have to be very agile and well balanced. Try to avoid main roads for that reason as much as possible. Take the by lanes running parallel to the main roads. Always wear helmet.
For night riding put many reflectors and blinking lights to be seen by other speeding vehicles.
Dogs chase you in night sometimes in by lanes you have to get down and get friendly with them!
But overall it is not as scary as you think. It is just the mindset that needs change. By moving around in cars and bikes we only have made our city unsafe. But cycling makes the city safe overall. For that we have to inspire more ppl to get on to it.
Theft
Easy to lift and take it off. The chain lock doesn’t guarantee the safety but it makes that much hard for anybody to steal. So place it in much visible area where people can see if there is some theft happening. And chain it to some stationary object. I use either the running water pipe or grilled gate to chain to.
Traceability of bike is not easy after theft.
Bike parking is not available in all places
Yep. So we have built big parking lots for cars and bikes but not cycles. We have to grow our community to voice our concerns. All we need is some iron loops in a line in front of our office to chain to.
Other places in city also have the same problem. So we have to find some odd stationary object to chain to.
Tendency to violate rules
Well I took to biking primarily to cut through the traffic snarls. So we get on the footpath meant for walkers, but since we don’t have cycling lanes there is no other go.
We are like amphibians changing to vehicle riders or pedestrians when necessary. We tend to cross as pedestrians where there are road dividers. Oneways are meant only for speedy vehicles so we tend to go there as pedestrians.
Safe riding is important without getting hurt and without hurting others on the road.
