Biking: The Ultimate Life Hack
Extra money. Healthier body. Happier mood. Connectedness to our community. And throw in a healthier environment to boot. What if there was a tool that could achieve all of these at the same time?
It’s the ultimate life-hack, but it’s not a pill or a mantra or a diet plan. I submit to you the humble bicycle.
My $50 college bike, still rocking after tens of thousands of miles
You’re skeptical. I get it. Here in America, bike transportation is for kids, homeless people, and suburban white guys in spandex.
But functional biking- the kind where you’re actually running errands and living your life on a bike instead of a car- has the power to dramatically impact the most important parts of our lives.
Your Bank Account
Take finances. As a three-kid one-income house we know what it’s like to have a tight budget. And I know that with 40% of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck I’m not the only one.
So check this out. The IRS (not typically known for lavish generosity) puts the cost of driving at .56/mile.
This means if your coffee shop is just 3 miles away, then according to the IRS you double the cost of the coffee by driving a car ($3 for the coffee, $3 for the ride there and back). Your 15 mile commute? That’s costing you $16 per day- that’s lunch, or a netflix subscription, or a new shirt- Every. Single. Day.
We drivers equate the cost of driving with the cost of gas- but that’s like saying the worst part of smoking is that your clothes smell a little funny. The cost of driving includes gas but it’s also the payments and interest, the oil change, the license and tabs, the parking, the parking ticket, the new tires, the timing belt and on and on and on that puts the cost at .56/mile or more in many cases.
Think of your bike as having an invisible money printer attached to it, printing off a $10 bill every time you hit the 18 mile mark (which for many people is just a daily commute or a trip to their friends’ place).
Americans on average spend $10,000 every year on their automobiles. What would you do with even half of those dollars back?
I’ll end this section with a quote from Mr. Money Mustache, a personal favorite and arguably the king of internet personal finance. Here’s how he would distill all of his personal financial advice spread across his hundreds of blog posts:
If I had to strip [the blog] down as far as possible, down to just one single action, and I wasn’t allowed to talk about anything else, the choice would still be simple: “Ride a Bike”.
Your Health
By now we know that Americans are growing more unhealthy every year. With a 40% obesity rate in the US and 3/4 of us not getting enough exercise it’s clear that modern life makes it hard to stay in shape.
I get it. With three kids, a full-time job, and multiple side hustles, I don’t often have the time and energy to get to a gym.
But I will go to a coffee shop to work. I’ll go to the doctor and the dentist and I’ll bring my kids to the park.
And I can bike to every one of those places.
By turning these car trips into bike rides, it’s not hard to get the 30 minutes of daily exercise that doctors suggest.
Can you sense how sneaky the power of biking is? Rather than trying to add in one more thing, you are building exercise into the fabric of your life.
Your Happiness… and Connection
When’s the last time you had a sense of childlike joy? Of freedom? Of connection with the world around you? If you’re like me, that sort of feeling can be hard to come by. “Adulting” is hard work- and with one in six Americans now getting help from psychiatric drugs (usually for anxiety and depression) it seems we could all use a boost in the happiness department.
I vividly remember my first “functional adult ride” when I pulled out my Peugot back in 2015. In that short ride to Redbox, it was impossible to miss the sheer childlike joy that was injected into this ordinarily-mundane trip. For 23 hours and 45 minutes that day, I was a full-fledged adult. But for 15 minutes I was a kid again.
I also noticed way more along the way. I nodded to neighbors in their yard or on the sidewalk. Instead of hopping into my giant steel box and magically popping out somewhere, I interacted with my route and each house, person, and business I passed.
It’s no wonder that biking is the happiest mode of transportation we have and that too much time in the car makes us miserable.
We’re made to be out there in the sun, wind in our face, lungs breathing deeply- present with our community and present with our world.
Seeing… and Removing The Obstacles
I’m sure you’ve got reasons why you don’t think you can bike- I know I’ve got mine (3 kids, chronic back pain, living in frozen Minnesota, etc. etc. etc.), but they all can be overcome- usually pretty easily.
Just another January ride in Minneapolis
For me, my kids ride in a Burley that I got for $50. For cold weather, there’s another great invention called clothes that help you ride no matter the temperature. For you the excuse might be distance- and you’re in luck! You’re living at the dawn of the affordable ebike- which helps people blaze long distances in little time with literally no sweat.
Of course, my sneaky goal that I’d never tell you on this blog post is to get you to consider a more fundamental shift: living close to work, friends, groceries, and all the places you go. But we’ll save the exponential power of proximity for another post. First we’ve got to get that bike out of the garage.
Conclusion
For some, the benefits of biking are old news. For the rest, I’m hoping that you’re starting to see this two-wheeled throwback from your youth for the wealth-generating, gut-slimming, happiness factory that it is.
Ok- that’s enough sitting for both of us. It’s time to pull our bikes down from the rafters (or Craigslist) and blow off the dust. I’ll see you out there!
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