This Page About Safe Cycling Brings Health and Happiness

Safe Cycling Brings Health and Happiness

Cycling is good for your heart, improves your balance and co-ordination, helps with weight control, enhances your general well-being and promotes mental health. Beyond the health benefits, it's an enjoyable way to get around.

Health experts believe that after just a few weeks of regular cycling, regardless of age, gender or initial physical fitness, the cyclist will be fitter and enjoy a greater sense of well-being.

Children Are Getting the Safety Message

Riding a bicycle is one of the joys of childhood. Parents must teach their children how to ride safely, ensure their child's bike and helmet are well maintained and fit properly - and most importantly, set a good example.

When cyclists are young and inexperienced, they tend to lose control or balance and fall off the bike. Mishaps occur when they ride out of a driveway without stopping, go through stop signs or red lights, and turn (often to the left) without checking.

A March 2003 report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) shows that hospitalizations due to bicycle-related injuries among children 5 to 19 years of age declined by 12.5 per cent over the five-year period 1997/98 to 2001/02.

Fatalities have gone down dramatically. In 1984, before the value of helmets was recognized, four times as many cyclists age 19 and under were killed; Transport Canada statistics for that age group show 88 fatalities in 1984, compared with 21 in 2001. Tragically, in 2001 not one of the 12 cyclist fatalities under age 15 was wearing a helmet.

Adult cyclists - Room for Improvement

CIHI found relatively little change in the number of bicycle-related hospitalizations among adults during the five-year time period covered by its report.

More adults than children are killed while cycling. This is a dramatic change from two decades ago. In 2001, there were 60 bicycle fatalities. Of these, 36 per cent were children and teens (age 19 and under), and 64 per cent were adults (over 19). In 1984 there were 138 fatalities and the proportion was exactly the opposite - 64 per cent were children and teens, and 36 per cent were adults.

A 2002 Canada Safety Council survey sponsored by Liberty Mutual found that over half of Canadian adults who ride bicycles don't wear a helmet. Increased use of helmets could save a significant number of lives.

About 90 per cent of cycling fatalities are caused by cyclists being struck by motor vehicles. Children usually ride within their own community. Adult cyclists are more likely to ride in heavy traffic . Alcohol use is another factor in adult cyclist fatalities. A study by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, covering 1987 to 1997, found that 25 per cent of cyclist fatalities had been drinking.

Active Transportation

If you have a choice, walk or ride a bicycle instead of driving. For the safety-conscious cyclist, the many benefits of "active transportation" outweigh the risks.

The Canada Safety Council is a partner in the Canadian Council for Health and Active Living at Work, which has published Walk & Roll: A Guide to Active Transport To, From and At the Workplace. This comprehensive guide helps organizations encourage their workers to walk or cycle to work. It provides a step-by-step outline for developing a workplace active transportation plan, with tools such as an employee questionnaire, forms to assess your current situation, evaluation guidelines, and a list of helpful organizations and resources.

Cycling Health and Fitness

People follow three paths to good health: doctor, diet, and exercise. Our path to the doctor involves the greatest expense, $1,035 billion in 1996, or almost 1/7th of the Gross National Product. Over 60% of these visits involved medication, and there were over 70 million surgeries (source CDC). However, there would be less expense, trauma, and tragedy if we prevented many of these medical problems. According to the American Medical Association, 60% of Americans are physically inactive. According to U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, the number of people at risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke is increasing, and 50% of Americans are overweight. He said that improved nutrition along with 30 minutes of exercise five times a week could reduce cardiovascular illnesses and deaths by 50% and colorectal cancer by 40% (source CNN, June 11, 1999).

Unfortunately, those who decide to respond to health alerts tend to go overboard on nutrition and to adopt the wrong exercises. Rather than exotic nutrients, we need a diet consisting mainly of grains, fruits, and vegetables, with reduced amounts of meat and cheese. Rather than weight-lifting, TV "aerobics," and ab crunching, we need true aerobic exercises that help strengthen the heart, such as fast walking, cycling, jogging, swimming, rollerblading, skating, and cross-country skiing. The best exercise to change our sedentary habits is the one we can and will do nearly every day.

Bicycling has several advantages over other exercises:

1. Cycling exercises the heart better than walking without the pounding of jogging.
2. One can ride a bicycle almost anywhere, at any time of the year, and at low cost.
3. Little or no time has to be lost, as bike travel can be used to get to work, perform errands, or enjoy the outdoors.
4. Commuting by bike reduces pollution that causes asthma and bronchitis. A commuting cyclist is also less exposed to air pollution than a commuting motorist.

On the down side, cycling does involve some risk of injury which has been greatly exaggerated by fearmongers. Cycling actually has similar risks to traveling by automobile. The British Medical Association has estimated that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by twenty to one.

One very interesting question is how much aerobic exercise should one get every day? Some medical authorities recommend as little as 20 minutes a day, three times a week, while others recommend 2,000 kCal, which would be at least four times that amount. Why the great difference? Well, most authorities recognize the more exercise the better up to some undetermined point, but many are afraid that if they expect too much, people won't exercise at all. Another reason for lowering the recommendation was due to the damage caused by jogging, a problem cycling does not share. I am afraid that those setting very low requirements are giving people the mistaken impression that they don't need any more exercise than their usual, basically sedentary activity.

How much exercise do I recommend? I find that 45 minutes of cycling six days a week (about 2,000 kCal) keeps me feeling good, but not great, two hours per day keeps me very strong and controls my weight, and six hours a day on my bicycle trips makes me feel like superman after several weeks. We might say that lower amounts of exercise improve one's health and higher amounts improve one's fitness. I would recommend a minumum of 45 minutes a day and as much addition cycling as time permits. The time spent cycling will not be wasted; in addition to having a good ride, the cyclist will be more productive during the remaining time and will live longer as well.

Home | Golf | Tennis | Rowing | Skiing | Fishing | Cycling | Hunting | Swimming | Ice Hockey | Windsurfing