Originally Posted by
Scarbo
Sometimes I wonder about this although it now appears to be the common wisdom and it would be almost foolhardy to question the underlying assumptions about health benefits of cycling. And, the only reason I say this is because every time I stop to take a leak at a restroom on my route it is not uncommon to find a gaggle of old riders all yakking about their numerous afflictions quite openly.
Yeah, but they're still riding! If one were interested in the health benefits of cycling vs. non-cycling, one could simply look at studies - and there are quite a few of them, all of them positive. The reason it's common wisdom in this case is because it's true. So it's not an assumption, it's a published fact. I always prefer facts to urinal conversations.
Compared with the sedentary, age- and sex-adjusted mortality rates in leisure time physical activity groups 2 to 4 were 0.68 (95% confidence interval, 0.64-0.71), 0.61 (95% confidence interval, 0.57-0.66), and 0.53 (95% confidence interval, 0.41-0.68), respectively, with no difference between sexes and age groups. Within the moderately and highly active persons, sports participants experienced only half the mortality of nonparticipants (my bold). Bicycling to work decreased risk of mortality in approximately 40% after multivariate adjustment, including leisure time physical activity.
A dose-response relationship was found in both women and men, with the most striking difference in mortality between the inactive group compared with others.
All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work | Physical Activity | JAMA Internal Medicine | The JAMA Network
Plus there are studies of the health effects of only bike commuting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/
The health risks and benefits of cycling in urban environments compared with car use: health impact assessment study | The BMJ
It turns out that one is at a greater risk of being killed by a car than if one drove to work, but that's dwarfed by the health benefits.