Riding bicycles: A life on two-wheels is a life well lived, not only for personal health reasons, but for your community and the environment.

With longer and warmer days, you have no excuse not to get on a bike. Need some inspiration? Here are 17 reasons riding bicycles is oh so good for you.

1. You don’t need a bicycle

Ok, so this one isn’t true for everyone, but if you live in a city with a bike share program than it is.

2. If you do need a bicycle, you get the joy of choosing a beautiful one

From vintage to new, there are a whole lot of gorgeous bikes out there. Consider this your excuse to do some good window bike shopping.

3. You get to work out without actually having to go work out

Cycling is essentially a daily dose of exercise for lazy people. Bored with the gym? Just start biking to work everyday. That daily action of pedaling is quite good for you, and you’re going somewhere in the process.

4. Bicycles make you look good

Seriously, is there anything more attractive than someone on a bicycle?

5. The government will pay you

Commute to work? You can get up to $20 a month for your bike-related expenses.

6. Riding bicycles will save you money

A daily round-trip commute of 10 miles saves you about $10… per day. And trading your car for a bicycle can save you up to $8,000 a year. Think of all the organic smoothies you could buy.

7. You actually inhale more bad air in your car than on your bike

So forget the “I don’t want to inhale exhaust” argument, because as it turns out drivers are more susceptible to all the bad things in the air than those on their bicycles.

8. You’ll immediately go up three levels in your “cool factor”

“I rode here” sounds so much better than “I sat in traffic for half an hour to get here.”

9. It gives you a new way to explore new places

Bikes and travel go hand in hand. In most major metropolises you can track down a bike tour; the perfect way to get to know a new city.

10. Cycling alleviates stress

Think of cycling as a daily form of meditation.

11. You don’t have to commit to biking far

40 percent of all trips by car are under 3 miles. That is totally bike-able.

12. Farmers market vegetables look better in a bike basket than in the trunk of your car

They were grown outside, don’t they at least deserve an invigorating ride home back to your kitchen? Consider yourself a culinary cyclist.

13. You lower your risk of breast cancer

It’s true, women who bike 30 minutes or more a day actually have a lower risk of breast cancer.

14. Cycling is an act of female empowerment

As Susan B. Anthony once said, “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

15. Riding helps improve cycling infrastructure

If more people ride, more cities will be motivated to put in bike lanes and other infrastructure that helps support bike culture, so be a part of the solution.

16. Driving makes you fat

No really, it does. Cycling however, does not. But you will get stronger thighs and calves, and that’s nice.

17. It makes you smile

Get on a bicycle and see what I am talking about.

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Image: Anna Brones

The post 17 Reasons We Should All be Riding Bicycles appeared first on EcoSalon.

The hard working contributors, columnists and editors at EcoSalon are earning their green stripes, blazing the trails and taking their proven commitment to sustainable living beyond the daily blog. Our strides are so darn exciting, we simply can’t keep them to ourselves.

Ready, set, kvel!

Fashion Editor Amy DuFault has stepped over to the other side, opening her own eco haunt, Shift Boutique. Sure to be the next Hyannis, Mass. hot spot, the store peddles sustainable products by Prairie Underground and Dahl, to name just a few emerging green lines. Amy also hosts events through her lifestyle consulting company, Greenover. If that didn’t keep her busy enough – she is signed up in January to teach eco fashion enrichment at her local middle school, helping 12-year-old girls create recycled fashion to showcase on a catwalk at a fashion show.

Contributor Susan Chaityn Lebovits is developing and implementing ways Boston University can reduce its environmental footprint. Susan is the Communications Specialist for Sustainability at the university, and is working to launch a new website in January that will house everything from research on renewable energy to classes that touch on sustainability and energy-saving building retrofits. The site will even help visitors locate bike racks and recycling stations. Meantime, Susan is producing a 15-stop Green Campus Tour Podcast, which covers locations such as the university’s geothermal building.

Anna Brones, our newest contributor, gets all of our votes as the people’s representative for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. HuffPost in conjunction with Hopenhagen is sponsoring the competition and voting ends December 4th, so cast yours as well! If chosen, Anna would report back daily from the conference as a HuffPost citizen journalist. Anna is the co-founder of Under Solen Media, where she develops social media marketing strategies to positively align brands, causes and adventurers. She’s also been busy helping the Save Our Wild Salmon campaign in the ongoing litigation process to come up with a scientifically sound plan for restoring Columbia-Snake River salmon.

Senior Editor Luanne Bradley will soon appear with her husband, Edwin, in a San Francisco Chronicle article on eco power couples. The feature highlights their daily work for green change. Edwin is an environmentalist and lawyer and Luanne writes the column Life in the Green Lane, a humorous look the modern family going green in the city. Luanne continues her green design consulting, having completed a teacher’s lounge with healthy fibers and vintage Mid-Century furniture.

The Green Plate Columnist Vanessa Barrington is on a daily mission to make the small changes that add up, riding her bike everywhere she can, finding “the car is merely a taxi for the dog to go on walks.” She is limiting her meat and processed food consumption and still working to get one hold-out member of her family to see the joy of giving to charity instead of “stuff” for the holidays. Her garbage can is minuscule and she only fills it once a week! She uses bathwater to flush her toilet and when she is cold, she puts on a sweater instead of cranking up the heat. Of course, she can also make a steaming bowl of delicious soup from one of her dozens of dynamite recipes.

EcoMeme Columnist Lora Kolodny is in a holiday mood, trying to knit a gift-scarf out of bamboo yarn, and looking forward to the Green Drinks holiday party Dec. 8th in NYC. She recently convinced a Manhattan restaurant manager to stop serving coffee in disposable cups by default. Now only to-go patrons get the paper. When not writing for EcoSalon and her blog at the New York Times, she also volunteers for God’s Love We Deliver.

Publisher and EIC Sara Ost has been busy building the green community at EcoSalon through Trashless Tuesday on Twitter (a la Meatless Monday), drawing chuckles and questions cruising around the Bay Area in her Smartcar, hosting Treehugger’s Carnival of the Green recently, and turning up as one of Greenopia’s Green Women We Love. Next up is convincing the neighbors they really, really need the Omlet.

Check back soon for more updates on the green goings-on from all our contributors. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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