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Bike riding is good for your health, but don't forget to stay safe

By and David Komer
Published  May 22, 2024 6:28pm EDT
Health Works Sponsored by Corewell Health
FOX 2 Detroit

Warmer temps mean more bike riding - here's how to stay safe

Bike riding is good for you but you have to also stay safe while enjoying it. Here are some tips.

FOX 2 (WJBK) - We've known that riding a bicycle is good for our health but a new study is showing it is even better than most of us thought.

Jonathan Crowell from Motor City Bicycles stopped by to talk about those physical benefits.

"It's a wonderful endurance, low impact sport, and that's a great thing about riding is, it's one of the sports that you can take with you as long as you're alive," he said. "It doesn't take the pounding on the body. It's not as hard on the knees. (And) with that research, it's showing that you can support all the muscles around in the joints around the knees without having that high impact."

Bike riding is something that both young and old can do. But safety is a must, and that's when wearing a bike helmet comes into play.

"A block for a lot of people getting into helmets is the price," Crowell said. "It's not that riding your bicycle is inherently risky. It's just we're prepping for the other things out there that we can't necessarily control, that wearing a helmet is going to protect you for.

"There are a couple different sizes most often small, medium and large. And that's what coming into the shop is going to have a large benefit for, we have lots of helmets you can try on and determine which one's gonna be the best fit."

Lights on your bike are also important, Michigan law requires at least one light, but ideally one on the front and one on the back are used.

A good idea is to have a bell on your bike, he said.

"(A bell is) another wonderful feature you can add to your bicycle to make sure other people are are aware of you," he said. "Very similar to the lights when you're on bike paths, walkways, we're sharing these things with other cyclists, other runners, other pedestrians. So it's a polite way of letting people know that you're going to be coming around them and they can expect you not to maybe move on the side."

Michigan has a plethora of trails and paths to explore, so bike riding is good for your health and quality of life, too.