Biking is fun, healthy, free and gets you where you need to go

Guest post: Cyrus, our second Go Fit Boy!

Over the past few years, I’ve dabbled in various forms of exercise. There was the year of indoor rock climbing, and the year of racketball. There has been intermittant trail running and this past summer, frequent friendly basketball games. But lately, my most regular form of physical activity has been biking.

Maybe it was because my wife and I share a car, or maybe it was because it was springtime, but ever since May, I’ve found myself hopping on my bike to do shopping, errands and even interviews for my work. As a journalist, I’m constantly interviewing other people.

Biking as many places as possible is fun, healthy, free, and a neat way to learn more about my neighborhood. However, the most surprising thing about biking around Oakland and Berkeley is that in many instances it takes roughly the same amount of time, if not less to bike than it does to drive.

In fact, just yesterday morning I biked to downtown Oakland to do an interview. Had I taken BART, it probably would have taken me longer, as I would have had to hoof it to Rockridge BART (a 10-minute walk away) and then take the train and walk to the location of my interview. Instead, I braved the rain, and was downtown in a quick 20+ minutes — a journey of about 3.75 miles each way.

What was a 10-minute walk to the post office or Trader Joe’s now takes about two to three minutes. Even driving to the north side of the UC Berkeley campus (three miles away) would probably take 15-20 minutes, but I can easily do it in 15. Plus, I don’t have to worry about parking. I have my backpack with me nearly all the time and it does a pretty good job for everything from grocery shopping to holding my bike gloves and helmet when I’m not riding.

Friends and family say that I’ve lost weight since the last time I saw them, and maybe I have — I don’t keep super accurate tabs on my weight gain or loss — but putting in 20-30 minutes a day on my bike certainly can’t hurt.

For repairs and such, I’ve had great experiences with Hank and Frank’s (driving to the post office) and the Alameda Bicycle clinics in the Fruitvale and downtown Berkeley BART stations.
You can check Cyrus out here, too.
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Thanks so much Cyrus for sharing this with us. If anyone is interested in writing a guest post for Go Fit Girl! let me know via comments or send me an e-mail to: ann@gofitgirl.com.