As a country, Britain is taking to cycling more than it has at any other point in history. A number of factors are driving the new rise, including being able to save money and help the environment, but one of the main driving factors appears to be the concurrent rise in the number of people becoming more aware of their health and fitness, keen to use cycling as a way to get fit.
The conventional way of increasing your fitness and losing weight is to join a gym. This rarely lasts very long, though, with most gym memberships being used an average of fewer than five times. If you’re paying £40 a month for the pleasure, that’s a very expensive way of getting fit and an even more expensive way of not getting fit if you don’t use the membership’s benefits anyway. Going to the gym can seem like a chore, but cycling for fitness means that you get to experience the Great British outdoors and all of its benefits at the same time as improving your fitness and losing weight.
In fact, even those people who do go to the gym regularly are starting to cycle to and from the gym, with the ride acting as their warm up and saving time while they’re there, helping to increase the effect of their weight loss efforts even further. Few people actually look forward to going to the gym, but heading out on your bike on a beautiful summer’s day is something that you’ll want to do rather than something you feel you have to do. And the first rule of any fitness regime is that you need to want to do it.
The number of bike paths and cycle lanes means that Britain is more bike-friendly than ever, and getting involved in cycling and choosing to cycle to work has never been easier. To get started, the only requirements are a basic bike and a helmet, which, for a road bike, will probably set you back less than £200. That’s a saving over the gym inside five months, with a mountain bike potentially costing even less and allowing you to see even more of the fantastic scenery of Britain at the same time. No road tax, the knowledge that you’re helping the environment and helping yourself to keep fit are three very good reasons to get cycling for fitness and to ditch that expensive gym membership (which you probably don’t use anyway).
