This summer, the place to be is on your bike. Cycling is a fun form of transport that doesn’t harm the environment and benefits you. On a bicycle, you can travel up to 1,037km using the same amount of energy as you’d get from a litre of petrol – not bad, considering your heart is your motor!

Cycling is an aerobic exercise that reduces stress, improves balance and co-ordination, and increases your fitness. It also improves leg strength, which is especially important in older people as it helps to maintain mobility and bone density. Regular cyclists and active older people have much lower rates of fractures than non-active people.

Cycling is good for the waistline too and, with summer approaching, we all want to look our best. Cycling burns more calories than walking and you get to places faster! A 15-minute bike ride five times a week burns the equivalent of 11 pounds of fat a year, so get those legs pumping with a clear conscience – then you can have your cake and eat it. Obesity can lead to diabetes, heart disease, strokes and cancer. Regular cycling helps you lose weight and, therefore, helps to prevent these conditions.

Don’t worry about inhaling exhaust fumes from buses and cars. Cyclists absorb lower levels of pollutants – four-times lower in fact – from traffic fumes than people driving. If you take your bike instead of your car, you are reducing your carbon footprint and using less energy – that’ll ease your conscience after leaving the immersion on all night.

Don’t let the weather put you off either. The most common excuse people have for not cycling is the rain. However, it doesn’t rain as much as you might think. Met Éireann statistics put the average number of wet days (days with more than 1mm of rain) at about 150 days a year along the east and south-east coasts, and about 225 days a year in parts of the west (so have some pity for all the poor people who live in Galway). Figures from the Dublin Cycling Campaign show that, in December and February, it rains 8 per cent of the time. In July and August, it only rains 4.5 per cent of the time.

Most cyclists are not deterred by light rain (less than 0.5mm per hour). In Dublin, for example, the rainfall exceeds this only 4 per cent of the time during the wettest periods.
It seems that Ireland isn’t as wet as we believe.

Now that winter is behind us, it’s time to dust off the old boneshaker in the garage and go for a spin. Throw on a light coat, check the weather forecast and brave the streets. You’ll be helping the environment, reducing your waistline, working out your heart and, who knows, you might even like it.