Bikes: Good for the heart, mind, body and soul … guaranteed

By Sarah Hansing and Candice Covello

Photo: Sterling Lawrence / Trek Bicycle

Photo: Sterling Lawrence / Trek Bicycle

There are times when it feels like a massive victory just making it through the day with most of our to-do list checked off. But there is HOPE! There is a solution for simplifying your life. A solution so fun, so glorious, that you may not have even considered it. That solution is โ€ฆ (drumroll, please) … bicycles! This might seem like a pretty dramatic claim, but itโ€™s the honest truth; people just like you have relied on cycling for transportation, happiness, health and fitness since the early 1800s. Long before cars, there were happy cyclists eschewing ye olde horse and buggy for the two-wheeled wonderment and convenience of a bicycle!

Bikes can be your car replacement, getting you through traffic and to work faster. Added bonus: you no longer have to โ€˜feedโ€™ your car expensive gasoline, you get to feed yourself your favorite fuel to get you where you want to go! So nom down a delicious pastry or breakfast burrito. It’s fuel in the tank, after all.

And have no fear, working professionals and students โ€“ with the right cycling gear youโ€™ll always arrive clean and dry. Youโ€™ll also be happy. You got your morning exercise in, your endorphins are making you giddy, you didnโ€™t have to sit in gridlock, and you mightโ€™ve even just earned your second breakfast!

Candice discovers the freedom of cycling. Yeeeeee!

Candice discovers the freedom of cycling. Yeeeeee!

Bikes can be that extra push to take a picnic in that park near your house. Bikes let you pedal your stress and worries away, the healthy way. Bikes give you a sense of freedom, exhilaration and motivation. (Remember that feeling you had as a kid? Yep. That.) And bikes will have you itching to get outside and discover some of the most beautiful scenery, best adventures, and coolest people this planet has to offer.

This is why we ride. Weโ€™ve seen family members get healthy and strong riding bikes. Weโ€™ve seen our friends go from novice to pro. Weโ€™ve seen children learn coordination and balance. Weโ€™ve experienced the smallest to the most extreme benefits of cycling, and everything in between. Itโ€™s addictive for all the right reasons. Bikes are the kind of thing you want to share with EVERYONE.

We want you to know how healthy and happy and free you can be on two wheels. We want to spread the great sport of cycling as far and as wide as we can. The best part? There are so many different types of bikes and ways to ride, everyone can experience the benefits that bikes have to offer! Get your stress levels down and your happy levels up โ€“ ride for transportation, for convenience, for fitness, and for fun. Ride for YOU.


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โ€‹Fat Tire Tuesday columnist Sarah Hansingย has been slinging wrenches as a pro bike mechanic for 15 years (with the exception of a one year stint working for Trek Bicycles in Wisconsin.)ย Epicenter Cycling scooped her up as their lead mechanic and the shop’s crewย plans to โ€‹keep her forever. Sarah loves riding singletโ€‹rack, wrenchingย on bikes, and hanging out with her jerk-face but adorable cat Harlan. (Who is a jerk.)

Sarah co-authored today’s blog with co-worker and partner-in-crime Candice Covello. After years of friendship and a boatload of snapshots, Sarah and Candice discovered there are literally ZERO photos of them together where they are not wearing costumes.