"People Who Cycle to Work Are Dangerously Unbalanced"

Despite the dirt, difficulty, and danger, they claim they are happier.

That's right. new research reveals that people who ride their bicycles to work think they enjoy their lives more than people who don't.

However, when you talk to them, all you hear are tales of being run off the road by uncaring drivers, dodging insults and occasionally projectiles (the fast-food beverage seems to be the motorists' missile of choice) and the need for dedicated infrastructure and diligent law enforcement, because in its current form, biking to work is (by their on estimation) insanely dangerous.

Add to that the weather---extremes of heat and cold, rain, snow in some places---and the lack of facilities at most job sites for securing their bikes and for washing and changing into work clothes ... one has to wonder how these people define "happiness>" A masochist getting whipped to death might be ecstatically happy until the end comes, after all .... perhaps.

And that is what this study seems to show---that people who ride their bikes to work, far from actually finding greater joy and contentment in daily life, actually suffer severe mental illness.

Not that it is bad to be a masochist---in theory. If a person truly finds joy in suffering, they that person might as well go suffer, so long s no one else is hurt. This is science--there are no value judgments here.

But what the science seems to say is that there is a class of people with mis-wired brains or malfunctioning limbic systems, who can clearly (and in Great detail---some threads on cycling forums run to a dozen pages of complaints on the smallest aspect of riding in traffic) and precisely delineate all the reasons why cycling to work is a terrible idea, full of danger and difficulty and frustration and pollution, yet who claim, when asked, that riding to work is the best part of the day.

At least this mis-wiring seems to leave the victims highly functional---most seem to do a good job at work once they finally get there (and after they finish recounting that day's tales of nearly being hit by cars and trucks, while riding on decaying pavement in dangerous traffic while breathing exhaust and dodging missiles, while trying to mop up the sweat which is mixing with the grit and road grime covering their bodies.)

So, go ahead an hire the cycle-commuter. He or she will potentially be a source of amusement and but will also probably be a solid worker. But be ready for the endless complaints about cycling to work.
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Same data, different take on the tone of the article.