By Makayla Hamlin
May is National Bike Month, so we can’t help but encourage you all to give bike riding a try on the ART! The month was established to encourage biking as transportation, sport, and fun.
The League of American Bicyclists, the sponsor for the month, believes that biking should be a typical part of life, and provides resources to local governments and states to make biking easier. Like them, we know that Biking or Cycling carries numerous health benefits. Like most exercise, it decreases your risk for cardiovascular disease, helps your joints, and keeps you healthier overall.
Compared to other exercises however, it is more low impact, costing your body less energy. From a transportation angle, it’s more efficient than walking, allowing you to reach longer distances without getting as tired. Part of its appeal is also how fun it can be. It’s fun to zoom down hills and reach new speeds, and satisfyingly arduous to ride up those same hills and reach those new speeds.
Most people learn how to ride a bike as children and abandon it as they get older. But surprisingly, the knowledge doesn’t leave us. According to neurologists, this is because riding a bike is a skill stored in procedural memory, commonly referred to as “muscle memory”. It’s an unconscious memory, allowing us to recall it without having to think about it.
So, most of us have this amazing skill that we just don’t use anymore. Isn’t that crazy? The silver lining is that cycling is great for all ages and skill levels, so for most people, biking is within ability. Even if you’ve never learned, it’s not too late to start. Once you know it, you never forget.
RESOURCES:
