Recently we moved to a new office building – nice, new, modern and … with reduced parking space (or just too many people driving to the office). Well, I was also one of them …
until one morning I went to the office and the parking was completely full. After 20 minutes driving around, without finding a single parking space, I drove back home and booked a home office. The story repeated also next day, so I spent the rest of the week working from home. For the advantages of home office, read here:
On Monday the weather was great, so I decided to ride my bike to the office – 8.5 km in 35 minutes is quite reasonable and I liked it. Since the weather remained good, I did this over and over during the whole week and even did a long trip in the weekend.
What is the feeling?
After a week of biking, I could really feel a difference. You can feel it not only in the muscles of your legs but in your whole body. More energy during the day, fresher mind and more power for activities in the evening. The reasons for that are quite simple.
Wake up and get ready for the day
Biking in the mornings helps to wake up – your body is working, you warm up for the day, your muscles get a dose of exercise after the night.
You can also use this half an hour to plan your day, think of new ideas or just enjoy the ride through the park. This increase your efficiency and happiness during the day.
Refresh and do something useful in the evening
After intensive working day our brain is tired. Here comes the next dose of exercising that helps to recharge, come fresh home and spent good time with the family.
In addition, during the 30-40 minutes trip you can do something useful. Having a bicycle phone holder and bluetooth headset provides a wide range of possibilities.
- Time for calling family members and friends to stay in touch with them
- Discuss topics and make arrangements
- Learn something new by listening podcasts or courses
You can find some good resources with free trainings here:
Next step – from 1 week to 1 month
After realizing the potential of this activity, I decided to go a step further and always cycle to the office if it is not raining. During the rainy days I booked a home office or picked a moment when the rain has stopped and used the bike.
The more days were passing, the better I felt. Then it came a moment when I realized it has been a month since my car didn’t leave the garage. I felt proud on this achievement and I also felt obliged to share this experience and try to inspire more people doing it. Below are few extra reasons why it is worth.
Free sport
Do you have the time and motivation to make 1 hour of sport every second day? Well, this is what you get when cycling to work:
- My trip back and forth to the office is around 17 km. When you add to this small trip for shopping or other events, it makes easily at least 20 km per day cycling when I am going to the office.
- This takes me a bit more than 1 hour.
- I do this 2-3 times a week + some trips during weekends so let’s say 15 days in a month. This makes at least 300 km per month.
Save time, money and the nature!
Traveling to work with a car during rush hours, may take me 40-50 minutes when I am stuck in a traffic jam. With the bike it always takes 30-35 minutes.
Bikes run on man power, so you save some costs for gas. Maybe it is only 200-300 € per year, but is still something and in addition you reduce your CO2 footprint.
What comes next?
There are plenty of valid cases where you need a car and I am sure I will soon need to take mine out of the garage as well. But until the weather is good, let’s try more biking and less driving, so we keep our good shape and enjoy the additional benefits.