I admit that most days my commute involves walking up a couple of flights of stairs to my home office.  For the rest of you, consider these facts from the MassBike “Bicycling and Health” Fact Sheet before you consider how you will get to work tomorrow.

• A 15-minute bike ride to and from work five times a week burns off the equivalent of 11 pounds of fat in a year.
• How much time a person spends driving has a greater impact on whether a person is obese than other factors such as income, education, gender or ethnicity.
• On 350 calories — or one apple tart — a cyclist can travel 10 miles, a pedestrian 3.5 miles, and an automobile 100 feet.
• Even though cyclists breathe two to three times as much air as motorists during the same trip, motorists actually breathe in about 60% more carbon monoxide—and significantly higher levels of other air pollutants—due to being enclosed in their vehicle. Cyclists also benefit from the physical exercise, increasing their resistance to air pollution.

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