Recycla’s family is a group of dedicated bikers. Her husband has been commuting to and from work for years on his two-wheeler. Recycla rediscovered the joy of biking this summer after a 30 year hiatus, while Recycla’s daughters are turning into excellent cyclists themselves.
The family recently moved into a new house that is a mile from their downtown and they’ve been taking advantage of this proximity to bike to the library, bakery, farmers’ market, and more. Not long ago, they biked downtown to meet relatives for brunch — a 10 minute trip that would have taken them 25 minutes by foot. (Plus Recycla and Mr. Recycla would have had to listen to lots of kvetching from the children about being hot and tired.)
Biking is easy and it doesn’t take much effort to acclimate, even after a long hiatus. When Recycla first started this summer, she was wobbly and had no stamina. After just a couple of weeks, she was attacking the hills in her little town and almost always succeeding. She has a basket on the front of her bike and a rack on the back, so she can return library books or do a little shopping while she’s out and about.
There are lots of benefits to biking:
- It’s good exercise — biking 10 mph for an hour will burn around 345 calories.
- It’s environmentally friendly — biking creates ZERO emissions, while every gallon of gasoline burned creates approximately 20 pounds of carbon dioxide.
- It’s less expensive than driving — factor in the cost of your car, the cost of insurance, the cost of gas, and the cost of maintenance and then compare that to biking. Big difference, right?
- It’s FUN!
The Eco Women aren’t suggesting that you ditch your car, but they do encourage you to cut out some of your car trips every now and then. Imagine if you eliminated one car trip a month, every month. It may not seem like much, but imagine if lots and lots of Eco Warriors did the same thing — then the benefits to Planet Earth would start to add up.
Tell the Eco Women: Do you bike? If so, how much? If not, why not?
Bike facts courtesy of Ideal Bite.
I love to bike, although it’s been on a bit of a hold this year what with being preggo. But…
I highly encourage anyone with tots just getting ready to learn to grab one of these: http://www.stridersports.com/
We picked one up for our Boy when he was about 18 months. It’s amazing! He’ll be moving up to a regular bike next summer and there will be no training wheels involved. The kid is a speed demon on this thing. He’s gotten so good it’s hard to keep up with him when we’re just walking!
Now, if I could just get him to turn the handle bars around the “right” way…
I used to bike ALL the time when I lived in town, but now I’m in the country and it’s DANGEROUS to ride my bike on 2 lane highways. If I had a trail, I’d pedal everywhere again.