The benefits of cycling: increased longevity and less likely to have osteoarthritis and experience knee pain. “I was surprised to see how very strong the benefit was.”
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I moved from Austin to Amsterdam at age 42 (which naturally took my bike usage from 0 to 100 overnight). More recently, I was chatting with my wife's family and casually mentioned the eventuality of getting my knees replaced at some point later in life. They were all completely confused: why would I ever need a knee replacement?
I have a fear-based relationship with bicycling. I never learned to ride growing up, learned from a former student in my mid-30s (documented here: https://themorningnews.org/article/you-never-forget), and then promptly gave it up again because I prefer to run for exercise and drive for performing tasks. But my kindergartener son is a pretty avid biking fiend, and at some point I'll need to get over myself. I guess I'll keep the fact that there are other benefits for myself tucked in whenever I get around to re-re-re-learning.
I loved this piece! I've always wondered if cycling was a net positive or negative for my knees. I'm not sure if this is definitive, but I'm happy to tuck stick it in the very long PROS column. Living longer seems hardly jaw-dropping. If doing something that puts a smile on your face, that keeps your balance, your cardio, and your muscles all engaged, it kinda seems like a no brainer you might live longer, all other things being equal.
I kind of hate science news stories like this.
I mean, I want all if this to be true and in my heart believe it to be true. I used to run marathons back in the day, which took a toll on my knees. Afterward I started biking just to get around, to the point where nowadays I use my bike for maybe 90-95% of the trips I take. And my knees have never felt better!
But this 'study' is just a bit of correlation from some survey results and x-rays. Lame! The study controlled for age and gender, but not race or (nor?) income. I wonder what the income/wealth distribution is like for avid cyclists.
I was a long-time biker - commuter, workouts, etc. Then we had our second child and I wasn't finding the time to bike anymore. Skip to two months ago, I got the idea to enter myself in the Grand Fondo NY (an 85 mile bike race) and got to training regularly. I rode the race on Sunday and actually finished - something I wasn't sure was going to happen. I now feel incredibly better health wise and am now searching for my next race to enter. Biking is a wonder.
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