Go Green, Ride a Bike

Are you serious about going green and living a more environment-friendly lifestyle? Take that bike out of the basement and start pedaling away. The two-wheeled, human-driven, single-track vehicle is one of today’s most excellent solutions for being able to get around – without harming the environment. There’s also no better place for cyclists than the Greater Chicago area, which features 315 miles (and growing) of bikeways spanning it.

Let’s look at a number of the green benefits of bicycling:

• There’s no fuel necessary – just your pair of legs and you’re good to go. Instead of having to take the car out of the garage for a quick trip to the grocery, the bank, or the post office, why not unchain that bike and take it for a ride? It burns no fuel – just unwanted calories – and thus emits no carbon dioxide.

• It saves you energy and money. A bike makes perfect economic sense. Think of how much cash you have to shell out just using a motorized vehicle: gasoline, car insurance, parking tickets, car repairs, and even towing fines. With a bike, you can generate savings you’d otherwise have squandered on the above-mentioned transportation expenses. It’s pretty low-maintenance, too.

• A bike does not contribute to air pollution. Again, it’s because there’s no fuel burning or smoke belching involved. It even helps reduce the risks of respiratory illnesses that are associated with poor air quality. Even if you use a hybrid bicycle – a bike with batteries installed on it – you’re using a vehicle that has far less pollutants and impact on the environment. It is easy on the earth and a quick, easy, and clean method of transportation.

• Biking keeps you fit and improves your health. The physical and mental benefits of riding a bike are tremendous and widely acknowledged. It’s a great cardiovascular exercise that helps lower your risk of heart disease, tone your muscles, lower your stress levels, and elevate your mood. Just being able to see the local city or town views while biking is relaxing.

• It also reduces noise pollution. And traffic congestion. Come to think of it, biking is a quiet exercise that can spare us the ill effects of the noisy, stressful, jam-packed roads. Viewed from a wider perspective, it can enhance the livability of communities and neighborhoods and make them all socially healthier.

• Bikes save land space. They’re much smaller than cars, and thus require far less land for use. Imagine if there were fewer motorized vehicles and much more bicycles: there’d be far less need for highway development and road construction, two of the things that irk motorists in the first place.

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