It’s a cheap, fast and healthy way to get around but only two per cent of us are prepared to get on our bikes. National Bike Week is coming down the tracks – a good excuse to get pedalling

NEXT SATURDAY marks the beginning of National Bike Week and while this news may not set your pulse racing, we think it’s a week that’s worth celebrating – mostly because cycling is an almost perfect way to travel and it needs all the good press it can get.

Despite the fact that it is fast, cheap, wholesome, invigorating and convenient, it is weirdly unpopular in this country. Just two per cent of Irish adults cycle every day – the number in (admittedly flatter) countries such as Holland and Belgium is much closer to 50 per cent.

While our Dutch cousins have been cycling through their cities like they own them virtually since 1817 when Baron Karl von Drais first introduced his Dandy Horse to the world in Mannheim, many Irish people are deeply sceptical of pedal power and remain in thrall to cars and public transport, despite their obvious disadvantages.

There are also people – many of them in fact – who spend thousands of euro on gyms and spinning classes but won’t even look at a bike.

Their excuses are well-rehearsed: it’ll be cold and wet; I’ll get sweaty; it’s dangerous and ridiculous looking. And the bike will be stolen.

Despite all the obstacles, things are changing and cycling is slowly growing in popularity. There are probably more people on bikes now than at any point since the last tram crossed O’Connell Bridge.

The slowly-growing popularity can be explained by a generous tax incentive and an urban bike scheme which have captured the public imagination in a way that has exceeded all expectations.

And, of course, there are events like National Bike Week. It is, says Laura Behan from the National Sustainable Travel Office in the Department of Transport, “about raising the profile of cycling as the healthiest and easiest-on-the-pocket way of getting around for those shorter journeys. But most of all, National Bike Week is about reminding everyone that cycling is fun.” And she’s not wrong.

TEN REASONS TO LOVE CYCLING:

IT KEEPS YOU ALIVE

While many people believe they take their lives in their hands when they hop on their bikes, quite the opposite is true.

A leisurely cycle at just 15km/h burns around 400 calories in 60 minutes. If you cycle at a brisker 22km/h, you burn 700 calories. Cycling dramatically increases aerobic fitness, reduces the risk of heart disease and strokes, lowers blood pressure, reduces stress levels, lowers cholesterol and boosts energy levels.

Danish research has shown that its cycling citizens live seven years longer than its non-cycling ones. This may well explain why 36 per cent of Danes cycle every day.

TONE ALONE

A daily cycle is considered to be one of the best workouts you can have and works more muscle groups than a lot of sports, so not only will you live longer, you’ll be more toned too.

TAX MASTERS

By taking advantage of the tax breaks available to cyclists and their employers, you can get a decent bike on the cheap.

The Bike to Work (biketowork.ie) scheme covers bicycles and accessories up to a maximum of €1,000. Your employer buys it and you pay for it, tax-free, over 12 months, which effectively knocks around 40 per cent off the price.

It is one of the few consumer-friendly tax incentives to survive recent swingeing cuts, but who knows how long that will last.

TRAFFIC? WHAT TRAFFIC?

Traffic jams become a thing of the past when you’re on your bike. It is hard not to feel just a little – okay, a lot – smug when you cycle past dozens of swearing motorists stuck in traffic. It is also pleasant to look in at all those commuters wedged in steamed-up buses coughing and hacking on each other.

While all these other commuters are getting stressed and sweaty, you just glide past with gentle breezes blowing on your face, safe in the knowledge that when you get to your destination, there’ll be no need to worry about finding a parking space – although the State could do more to provide secure parking for our bikes.

PRECISION TIMING

When you get into your car and head for work you can never be sure how long the journey will take. Maybe the traffic will be light or maybe it will be gridlocked, who knows? Similarly, when you run for a bus you have no idea if it will come on time or leave you standing in the rain for 20 raging minutes. Because of all the uncertainty you have to leave home earlier than you’d like. When you cycle, the commuting time is absolutely consistent and utterly reliable, which will give you more precious time in bed of a morning.

IT’S DRIER THAN YOU THINK

Readers in Galway – and anywhere along the western seaboard – might want to look away now. One of the common misconceptions about cycling is that you will end up arriving to work absolutely saturated three days out of every five. This is not true at all. According to Met Éireann, someone from Dublin who cycles 15 minutes to work, five days a week, will get wet on only four days out of every 100. Even if you live in a wetter part of the country, you can buy good, breathable rain gear for less than €100.

A GREENER SHADE OF SMUG

Who, apart from Jeremy Clarkson, doesn’t enjoy feeling smugly green? Emissions from cars, buses and trucks do more to damage the air quality in our urban areas than anything else. Cycling, on the other hand, is perfectly clean. Every kilometre you choose to cycle instead of drive saves approximately 250g of CO2 emissions. That’s nearly a tonne each year.

IT’S CHEAPER

A bike good enough for the daily commute will cost anywhere between €250 and €500. Add the cost of the lights, €25; helmet, €35; rain gear, €100; and lock, €50 and you will spend around €600. If your commute is just 8km each way and you usually drive, then you will save around €400 in petrol costs alone over the course of a year. According to the National Bike Week people, the savings on tyres, servicing and repairs will be around €300 a year.

WE CAN THANK THE BIKE FOR THIS

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles . . .when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.”

The Third Policemanby Flann O'Brien

IT’S CHEAPER II

A commuter who lives in Sutton – some seven miles from Dublin – will spend €4.40 on a return Dart ticket into the city daily. Allowing four weeks for holidays and a further week for sick days, the average Sutton-based commuter will spend €1,034 on train tickets each year. Someone taking the bus in from Harold’s Cross, meanwhile, will spend €564, while it will cost someone coming in to Dublin city centre from Goatstown on the Luas €822.50 every year.

Assuming that their bike is not stolen, the Sutton-based cyclist and the person living in Goatstown will save themselves nearly €3,000 after three years or enough to pay for a week in Vegas and a fortnight in the Caribbean.

How to keep your bike safe from thieves

Okay, we can't deny it, while we may wax lyrical about the joy of bikes, there is one inescapable downside, there are thieves out there – a lot of theives – and your bike may get stolen. In the last two decades, Pricewatch has had 21 bikes stolen by ne'r-do-wells and only last week, we looked out of our window on a Saturday morning to see one such ne'r-do-well trying to make off with our 22nd bike. With that in mind, here are some tips that might help you to thwart the thieves.

1 DOUBLE LOCK:If your bike cost a lot – anything over €400 – and you want to take it out in public, use both a U-lock and a wire lock. Thieves need a hammer (or angle grinder) for the former and a bolt cutter for the latter, so only the most dedicated of scoundrels will be fully equipped should they happen upon your bike.


2 STRONG STEEL:Make sure locks are made with hardened steel. This site – http://url.ie/4rvt – offers a list of locks which have undergone testing. Last year, we reviewed locks and it was amazing how easy it was for even a bike-thief novice like us to crack open what looked like heavy-duty locks.

3 LOCK IT AWAY:As we can readily testify, close to half of all bicycles are stolen from the owner's home so don't make it easier for them. Don't leave it locked in your front gargen and don't leave it unlocked in your back garden. Keep it locked in a shed, and make sure the shed is locked. And ask if your home insurance policy covers such thefts.

4 CHANGING PLACES:Thieves are not stupid and nor are they blind. If you have a fancy bike and leave it locked in the same place, day after day, it will attact their attention and eventually it will get stolen. All you need to do is mix it up a little and park it in different places three times a week.

5 SOMETHING SECURE:Lock your bike to an immovable object and remember that thieves are resourceful and are quite happy to remove drainpipes and lift bikes off signposts.

On one occasion, we even lost a bike because a thief went to the trouble of pulling up a road sign, to which our bike was attached, out of the ground.

And remember if a bike is locked to a post that is less than 4 metres in height, thieves can easily lift it over the top.

6 INVERT KEYHOLE:If you leave no space between your bike and the object it is locked to then it makes it more difficult for the thief to lever the lock open.

While you're at it, invert the keyhole so that it points down, ensuring the thief can't pour in corrosive fluid which may make it easier to open.

7 PARTS SAFE:Maybe because it's the fashion for people to build their own fixies or maybe it's a simple case of mindless vandalism but it's not unusual to come back to your bike to discover that a wheel or saddle has been nicked.

Check to see if you have quick release mechanisms on your wheel or saddle and get them changed for a few euro at your bike shop.

Never leave your lights on your bike – it's an open invitation.