Make friends
Cycling is not like driving. Riding a bicycle is a happy pursuit. It puts you in a good frame of mind, open to ideas and ready to meet people. When you ride on your own, perhaps humming a happy tune and you find yourself rolling along next to some other contented peddler going your way, if you don’t speak first, that other cyclist is bound to speak to you. Like hikers meeting on a country path, the natural human response is to greet another person and pass the time of day. Most cyclists do it, and saying ‘Hello’ is not just a cute, rustic thing — you know you’ve got something in common with this other person so you’re already off to a good start. If you don’t happen to make friends when out riding, joining a cycling group will certainly expand your social sphere. Once again, you’ve all got a shared passion, but with a specialized cycling group, this passion becomes more than just riding bikes. If you join a group that does some particular kind of riding, you start off with even more in common. It may be riding along country trails, riding fast on roads or hurtling through narrow gaps between trees, but you all love it — and what better way to bond?
Save money
The price of fuel is going up and up. During the recent global financial crisis, oil prices reached record highs. And the government is slowly but surely increasing duty on fuel to encourage the use of more efficient vehicles (and to raise lots of tax). Unpredictable — and not so unpredictable — events can have a terrible effect on your personal finances if you rely too much on fuel. Saving money now by using your bicycle instead of your car whenever you can is a great idea. If you start to replace several car trips a week with bike rides, it won’t be long before your fuel bills are down £20 or more. And if you’ve got a reasonable distance to get to work, you’ll see even greater savings when you start your bicycle commuting. If your household has two cars and you get rid of one of them — because you’re using bikes more — you save all the registration and insurance on the second car. If you don’t own a car and are used to relying on public transport instead, you can still save substantial amounts of money (and cut down on frustration caused by cancellations and delays) by swapping your ticket for a bicycle. If you spend half an hour to an hour on your bike getting to work every day, you don’t need to be a regular at the gym anymore. You get plenty of exercise and become very fit just riding your bicycle and you can ditch the gym membership. Unless you’re much disciplined (unlike most people), when you go to the supermarket to buy 2 specific things, you probably come out with 20. So when you go to the bike shop to buy your new two-wheeled transport, think about the money you’re going to save straightaway. Very quickly, your savings will add up to the price of a good bike, so that’s what you should get — treat yourself to whichever one you like.
Become an environmental crusader
Car travel accounts for nearly 60 per cent of all the greenhouse gas emissions in the UK produced by transport, a figure that could easily be reduced. A whopping 70 per cent of all the journeys people make are less than five miles (eight kilometers), and well over half these journeys are made by car. Almost all of them could be replaced by a bike ride that would take 20 minutes or less. The immediate production of toxic gases is only the start. The pollution and use of non-renewable resources in the production of motor vehicles is colossal when compared with what it takes to make a bicycle: The stuff it takes to produce one car can turn out 70 to 100 bikes. No one knows when cheap oil is going to run out. It could be in your lifetime. If not, oil is even more likely to run out in the lifetime of your children. When it does, there’s going to be big trouble, but you’re far better off if you start preparing now for not having easy access to petrol. Learn to travel under your own steam to help our society change for the better and lessen the harm being done by the massive and wasteful use of non-renewable fuels.
Get places more quickly
On a clear road, a car can usually go at higher speeds than a bicycle, but it only takes a junction or two and light traffic congestion for bikes to start getting ahead. Cars may go faster, but they often don’t get there quicker. Cyclists can make their way to the front at red lights, and when motor traffic seizes up, bikes keep going. When motor traffic becomes concentrated, it slows right down. And then when motorists reach their destinations, they face the big problem of parking. Bikes just keep on going, and finding somewhere to leave them when you reach your destination is rarely a problem. The idea of the car as the perfect individual transportation is flawed because of what always happens when lots of them are present. In fact, there’s nothing like the freedom — or the speed — of the freedom machine.
Park with ease
People who drive to work or the shops often complain about the difficulty of finding somewhere to leave their cars all day. One of the wonderful things about travelling by bicycle is the very direct way you arrive — if you’re going somewhere, that’s where you go. You don’t have to divert at the last minute and burrow your way into one of the ugliest of human environments — a car park. And you very rarely have to pay for your spot. Many planners make a point of making bike parking facilities clearly visible from the building entrance, but if no one has taken the trouble to provide suitable racks, you can always find a bench, lamppost or fence to tether your bike to.
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