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23-Dec-2012

PHOTO CAPTION: Ducati electric-assist bicycle: Would the mental healthy benefits be the same?

Improve Your Brain By Cycling

Scientific studies in Europe and the USA are discovering the mental acuity, as well as physiological benefits of riding a bicycle.

You need only look at the physique of Bradley Wiggins to appreciate the potential effects of cycling on the body. But what about the mind? For as long as man has pushed a pedal, it's a question that has challenged psychologists, neurologists and anyone who has wondered how, sometimes, riding a bike can induce what feels close to a state of meditation.

I'm incapable of emptying my mind but there have been occasions on my bike when I realise I have no recollection of the preceding miles. Whether during solo pursuits along country lanes in spring, or noisy, dirty commutes, time can pass unnoticed in a blissful blur of rhythm and rolling.

It's not a new sensation. In 1896 at the height of the first cycling boom, a feature in the The New York Times said this about the activity: "It has the unique virtue of yielding a rate of speed as great as that of the horse, nearly as great as that attained by steam power, and yet it imposes upon the consciousness the fact that it is entirely self-propulsion."

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