Fasten your helmet and hop on.
Breezing past the queue of cars at the parking garage. Pedaling with ease rather than slumping behind the steering wheel. Clearing your mind after a hard day’s work with the wind at your back instead of jostling against the subway masses. It’s easy to see why city commuters are increasingly turning to bike-sharing. Convenience, enjoyment and outdoor activity are major bicycling benefits. Many U.S. cities offer bike-sharing programs such as Indego (Philadelphia), Nice Ride Minnesota (Minneapolis-St. Paul) and Capital Bikeshare (District of Columbia). However, biking in traffic comes with injury risks, particularly for helmetless riders. See how biking promotes work-life balance and wellness, and why wearing a helmet is important.
Disease prevention on wheels
Bicycle commuting was tied to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and overall mortality in a massive study of nearly 265,000 participants who either walked, cycled, drove or took public transportation. Walking to work was healthy but biking was healthier for participants tracked over five years in the study released in April 2017 in the journal The BMJ.
Pedaling for your heart
For men, reduced risk of heart disease were tied to bike commuting in an even larger study. Researchers analyzed impacts on disease and injury rates for people using London’s bike-sharing system. Although a cause-and-effect link wasn’t possible, “The population benefits from the cycle hire scheme substantially outweighed harms,” the researchers concluded from data on nearly 580,000 riders in the study published in the Feb. 13, 2014 issue of The BMJ.
“Biking is such a great way to get around the city and just have that benefit of interrupting a sedentary daily schedule,” says Corey Basch, an associate professor of public health at William Paterson University in New Jersey. “It’s moving from place to place. You beat the traffic and get where you’re going in a very straightforward way.”
Cycling away stress
Biking offers a bracing transition from home to your workplace and a calming journey on the way back. “It’s my one time where I’m completely unplugged and I’m able to think and decompress,” says Sarah Clark Stuart, executive director of the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia. “It is such a helpful way to get outside of my own head and just prepare myself for the next phase of the day.”
Head protection needed
Bike renters are less likely than bike owners to use helmets, which aren’t conveniently available, unlike the bikes themselves. “If you’re in a transient mode, which most people are, there’s nothing on the spot,” says Basch, who has conducted extensive research on bike-safety habits. “You’re obviously not going to get on the bike and start searching around for a helmet rental.” She’s the co-author of a 2015 study that looked at helmet use at 25 of the busiest Citi Bike docking stations in New York City. Helmet use was low, peaking at about 29 percent overall.
An August 2014 study in the American Journal of Public Health compared trauma-center data for bicycle-related injuries from five cities with public bike-sharing — Minneapolis, Montreal, Boston, Miami Beach and the District of Columbia — to five other cities without these programs. Among patients with bike injuries, head injuries increased from about 42 percent to 50 percent after bike-sharing programs were implemented, while proportions remained stable in comparison cities.
Mindfulness
Bike-sharing can be an opportunity to shrug off social media and electronics during daily commutes. If you’re tuning out outdoor sounds with headphones or checking for text messages while cycling, you could miss out on mindfulness benefits. Distracted biking can be hazardous, points out Basch, co-author of a related study published in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of Community Health. Researchers evaluated videotapes of nearly 25,000 cyclists at five New York City locations during the summer of 2015. Overall, technology-related distraction rates were low. However, men were more likely than women to wear headphones or earbuds, as were Citi Bike cyclists compared to riders on other rental bikes.
Environmental boost
“Overall, bike-sharing can be such a positive thing with clear benefits for the environment,” says Basch, as commuters rely less on pollution-producing cars that clog city traffic. But what about the risk of inhaling exhaust fumes from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles? The 2014 study in often-smoggy London took air quality into account. “The impact of cycle hire use on average daily exposure was small,” researchers found. City subway riders faced the worst air quality from reduced ventilation in the underground tube.
Downshifting depression
Exercise eases depression and that held true in the London bike-sharing study. Researchers estimated that female bike commuters in particular would have reduced rates of depression, based on changes in physical activity. Wellness opportunities matter to workers making career decisions, Stuart says. “Any urban city that wants to succeed in the future and attract and retain young workers and residents needs to incorporate bicycling into its transportation network in a very authentic and genuine way,” she says. “That means it must address infrastructure, such as high-quality bike lanes, but also provide accessibility, such as bike-share.”
Accessible biking for all
Bike-sharing cities are working to become more inclusive. Programs in Detroit and Portland, Oregon, are incorporating physically accessible rentals. Portland’s recently launched Adaptive Biketown program offers adaptive and side-by-side tandem bikes for rent. In May, Adaptive MoGo rolled out its new Detroit fleet including recumbent and hand tricycles. But bike-share programs have other inclusiveness issues to address — like improving outreach to people of color to boost diversity in ridership.
Handlebar happiness
There’s an intangible quality to biking. “I love it because it gets me outside and it allows me to really feel the elements,” Stuart says. “In a world where we’re protected and sheltered almost 24 hours a day, I like having the opportunity to go out and get wet, a little bit; to get hot, a little bit. I’m really feeling it. It just gives me more of a connection with the natural world and the weather around me.” She always wears a helmet as she travels through Philly. “I feel better with the helmet on, just as I feel natural putting on my seatbelt,” she says. “For me, it’s second nature. I wear it with pride.”
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9 Health Effects of Helmet Use and Bike-Sharing originally appeared on usnews.com
