On Sunday, October 1, 2017 at 1:03:32 PM UTC-4, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/1/2017 9:56 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
We hear a lot about bicycling having health benefits forthe one doing the bicycling. Yet a lot of CASUAL bicyclists are not all that healthy.

So, in order to gain NOTICEABLE health benefits from bicycling:

1a. How long in time does each ride need to be?
1b. What intensity does the bicyclist need to reach?

Well, there's this:
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/P....aspx#moderate

They say "at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as
cycling or brisk walking every week" or "75 minutes of vigorous aerobic
activity, such as running or a game of singles tennis every week" plus
strength exercises. Following links from that page tells you that flat
riding is "moderate," fast or hilly riding is "vigorous."

So 10 to 20 minutes per day does it, depending how fast you are. And I
suspect most of us here would be considered fast, even though most of us
are probably slow by our "used to be" standards.

"The older I get, the faster I was."

--
- Frank Krygowski

I wonder if they built the facilities that Joerg states are mandatory to get non-bicyclists onto bicycles if those new bicyclists would ride that hard for that long?

I've tried to get some people in my building interested in bicycling; even to the point of offering them the use of one of my spare bicycles. I got told that theweather was too hot, too cold, too wet and so on. In other words those people had no intention of riding a bicycle even though we have roads with bike lanes on them or very quiet roads that go 2 miles to a 50 miles long rail-trail.

People who will ride a bicycle will ride; those who won't ride won't ride. No matter how much bicycling infrastructure you build for them they'll have some excuse to not ride.

Cheers