Skip to main content

Re discovering the Bicycle

Image
By
In our present times when we are excessively dependent on cars, piling up excess weight, and falling prey to the epidemic of diabetes and heart disease, the bicycle can roll into our lives as quite a game changer.
 
There are 5 good reasons why we should take to cycling:
 

1. For Your Body:  The bicycle has been acclaimed as a great device for working out and keeping you fit. It increases cardiovascular fitness, strength, balance, flexibility, endurance and stamina and is an excellent way to burn the extra calories.

One major advantage that cycling offers over jogging or the tread mill is that being non-weight bearing, it causes less pressure on the ankles and knees in overweight people with creaking joints.

During a fellowship to Germany, my host and friend Dr Winfried Hauser had arranged a bicycle for me and insisted on showing me the countryside on bike. I remember the ordeal of the 1st day when I found myself out of breath after cycling a mere 2 kilometers. Over days and weeks, he kept pushing the distance up and after a month, we were cycling 30 km every evening, exploring farms, hills and villages in the picturesque Saarland. At the end of 3 months, I had shed 8 kg of weight and was at my physical best.
 

2. For Your State of Mind. Riding a bike is a proven stress buster. Regardless of whether you are riding purely for pleasure or for a specific purpose, you will arrive at your destination feeling relaxed, energized and happier about the world and yourself.

Anyone who has visited Cambridge will tell you how the small university town virtually moves on bicycle. From Nobel laureates and senior-most professors to the fresh university entrant, everyone moves, chats, discusses, ruminates and thinks while biking.
 

3. For Your Community. Being out on your bike is good for the people around you as well. You are able to go the places you want to go and yet put one less car on the road, with that much less noise, fumes and pollution. And the energy and materials used to manufacture one automobile could be used to create a hundred bikes.
 

4.  For Convenience. If you have ever been in crowded streets such as in the heart of Varanasi, you will realize the advantage of a 2 wheeler over the car. The cyclist can wiggle out of jams and hold-ups while you could keep sitting in your car for hours, vent your ire on the state of traffic in the city and push up your blood pressure.
 

5. It is easy on the pocket too.

If reforms are the need of the hour, promoting the use of bicycles over cars should take precedence over all others, and should be done with seriousness and care. The government needs to chip in its bit and ensure that bikers don’t become victims of hit-and –run cases, and that they get suitable facilities such as dedicated lanes and good parking lots.
 
As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 7th October, 2012.
 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How do you like your Tea?

By
The way we drink our tea may not only reflect our taste and style, but our health as well. Tea drinking is around 4700 years old and had its origin in China. Leaves of the shrub Camellia sinensis (tea plant) were in use at that time as a remedy for wounds and diseases. With the legendary emperor Shenong brewing and drinking its extracts, tea drinking became a popular habit in this part of the world. The British, impressed with the brew and the customs that go with drinking it in China and Japan, tried to emulate and evolve a tea-drinking custom of their own, and soon “tea-time”became a familiar term across the globe. Every home or cafe seems to have its own flavour. The north Indian variety of “chay” is a glass of hot creamy milk (more cream as it gets more “special”) with lots of sugar and a lacing of  “tea liquor” of strong tea that grows on lower heights (Assam, Nilgiri, Sri Lanka etc). In contrast, the Chinese and Japanese prefer light green or jasmine tea without a drop of mi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food suppl...
2 comments
Read more

Colas have No Class

By
Cola drinks, once a symbol of American upmarket style, is now to be found perched mainly on the shelves of road-side ‘paan walas’ and local grocers. True, there still are Americans who drink more colas than water, and consume an average of 2 bottles per day of the tangy fizzy dark drink, but it has clearly fallen in stature as offering it to visitors or serving it at parties is no longer elegant. Premiere schools in Lucknow such as La Martiniere College for girls have shunned colas from their canteen for the last 4 years. The story started with extensive campaigns by HOPE Initiative (Health Oriented Programs and Education) in 2005 creating awareness among the bright students about the long term harms of cola drinks. A heated debate followed in which the rights of an individual student  was pitched against the hazards of allowing gullible youngsters to be enticed by aggressive marketing to gulp colas and fall sick. The intelligent and alert La Marts students dcided on ...
Post a Comment
Read more