A lot of people today are so busy with their lives that they forget to exercise regularly. Here’s a quick tip to help you stay in shape: consider biking to work!
Biking is a great cardio workout. You’d be surprised how much your health improves after biking to work for a month. To ease yourself into it, first try designating one day per week as bike to work day. After a few weeks or when you are more comfortable, you can increase the frequency.
Now before you say, “my work is too far from home” and stop reading this post, you should think about including a train or bus ride into your route to see if biking is possible. Most public transportation systems are bike friendly. My route to work consists of ~4 miles of biking, 20 miles of train riding and ~1 miles of biking. Coming up with a route is easy. You can use Google Maps or Bikely to come up with your route.
In addition to improving your health, here are some other benefits of biking to work:
- Biking to work can save you money. Gas is not the only expense you incur while driving. Driving puts wear and tear which devalues your car. There is also car maintenance costs. Biking to work helps keep car expenses down and helps keep your car in better condition. Some employers also offer commuter check, which allows you to purchase public transit fares pre-taxed.
- Biking helps save the environment. This one is a no-brainer. Biking has zero emission. Helping save the air means less smog to breathe when you do outdoor activities.
- Biking lets you make use of time that would otherwise be spent stuck in traffic. On a bad day of traffic, it takes me 45-60 minutes to get to work. If I were to bike to work, I’d spend 35 minutes biking and 25 minutes working on the train (In fact, I wrote most of this blog post on the train!). On some days I would actually be saving commute time by biking to work while using that commute time productively.
Some gears to consider (most important first)
- Bike helmet, bike lights, reflective gear (safety first!)
- Leg strap: Wear this on your right shin over your pants so your pants do not get eaten up by bike gears.
- Deodorant: Your co-workers will appreciate this.
- Water and snacks (in case you get exhausted)
- Mini tire pump: I’ve had a thorn in my tire once and I was able to get home by repeatedly inflating my leaking tire and biking as fast as I can.
- Tire patch kit: In case you want to repair a flat on the spot. The above method doesn’t work on all flats.
- Mobile phone: In case of any emergency.
- Netbook with solid state harddrive: Netbooks with solid state drives are light and allows you to go in and out of hibernation mode fairly quickly. Best for when you have to jump on and off trains. Also, data on solid state drives are immune to any bumps or tilts if the system were to be powered on while you are biking.
- Aircard or mobile phone with tether
- *BONUS* Folding bike: It’s compact and light, which allows you to board with your bike even if there is no space left for bikes.
Other bike to work tips
- Tag your bike with a “to-from” label so it will be easier to group your bike with others who are getting off at the same station.
- Sit near your bike to prevent theft and be able to help others move your bike if necessary
- Weather is always predictably unpredictable so dress in layers.
If you do decide to bike to work, let us know how what your initial experiences are in the comments section below!
