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I bike 15+ miles a day but my work's discount program doesn't "support" biking. If I was into vigilante justice, I'd consider a solution like this too. But as
by Steltek 9y ago
I bike 15+ miles a day but my work's discount program doesn't "support" biking. If I was into vigilante justice, I'd consider a solution like this too. But as it is, I'm quite content biking for my own sake rather than some pittance of a benefit.
- Johnny555 9y agoWhen my friend was in a corporate fitness challenge, he strapped the company-issued pedometer on his ankle to get credit for his biking. Not sure if he told the company that he did that, but his team won the competition.
- liveoneggs 9y agoare you more likely to sustain an injury than someone who is mostly idle?
- 8ytecoder 9y agoDo you have statistics to indicate biking is inherently more dangerous than other activities or are you just repeating a certain assumption you have?
- stochastic_monk 9y agoLots of runners in my family. They often get injuries (especially knew) from running. Biking is a lot kinder to your joints.
- jimmy1 9y agoI rarely bike because I don't trust drivers, and you can't bike on the sidewalk.
- OrganicMSG 9y agoPeople who use bikes don't trust drivers either. In fact I work on the base assumption that bus drivers in particular, are actively trying to kill me.
- wool_gather 9y agoA healthy dose of paranoia is absolutely the way to survive on your bike. About the only thing you can trust not to screw you over is a tree. Of course, trees can easily conceal other objects...
- pizza 9y agoTrees, after all, are the dominant life form on this planet ;)
- bbarn 9y agoI am invisible in my mind when I'm riding. In fact, the one thing that catches me off guard is people yielding when they shouldn't be yielding - drives me crazy, and throws off my game.
- photojosh 9y agoCan't stand that. If they'd just gone when they should have, I wouldn't have had to fully stop and unclip. Working on my trackstands, but can only do them for a few seconds still...
- lostapathy 9y agoMost places its not actually illegal to bike on the sidewalk. Common myth.
- jakecopp 9y agoIn Sydney, Australia there is a $109 fine for cycling on a footpath (for those 13 and older), and a $319 fine for not wearing a helmet. That means a 13 year old trundling down a 5 meter wide footpath to the local shops on Sunday morning is up for a $428 fine, roughly 23 hours of adult minimum wage work. It seems to be seldom enforced, but it is doing a good job at what I think is the main objective - keeping people off bikes and in their car paying road tolls to the government and their private contractor businesses.
- gaius 9y agoRule 64 You MUST NOT cycle on a pavement (emphasis in original) https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cyclists-59-to-82 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-cycli... Cops never bother to enforce it that I’ve seen tho’
- sjg007 9y agoYes but not good for your testicles.
- bbarn 9y agoModern bike seats pretty much eliminate this issue.
- 8_hours_ago 9y agoThis is interesting... I am in my 20s and bike ~20 miles per day. Over the last 5 years I have had 3 broken bones due to bike accidents including one which required an ambulance ride. With few exceptions, I only go to the doctor for bike-related injuries and my annual physical. To my health insurance provider, do the benefits to my cardiovascular system and general fitness offset the cost to treat my injuries? I am guessing the insurance companies are looking far enough into the future where the long term benefits to my health outweigh the short term risks, but they are definitely losing money in the short term.
- Analemma_ 9y agoSomeone who ran the equivalent of ~20 miles per day (a 5K per day, maybe?) for 5 years would probably have their share of expensive medical issues too. Runners get fractures, they get in traffic accidents, they get pneumonia, etc. So in a straight comparison between running vs. biking as far as the insurance company is concerned, it's probably a wash.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago20 miles per day and 5K per day are not comparable. Probability of injury is a function of the quantity/intensity you are performing the action, and of course running 7x farther will be result in more injury.
- chatmasta 9y agoI think OP was comparing 5k running to 20 miles biking. That is still probably inaccurate, since a 20 mile bike is at least 60 minutes, and a 5k run is at most 30 minutes. It would be more accurate to compare a 10k or even 10 mile run to a 20mi bike. Of course it also depends on the physical condition of the person, especially their susceptibility to stress related injuries, and the running surface. Generally speaking running is much higher impact than biking, which is why you so often see runners with a stress injury training on a stationary bike.
- lev99 9y ago
- fpgaminer 9y agoBetween walking, driving, and biking, biking is the _most_ dangerous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort#Travel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort#Travel Given the same commute you can expect riding a bike to be 23 times more dangerous than driving a car. Put another way, it looks like people get into car accidents roughly once every 18 years. If instead of driving your car for your commute you rode your bike, you can expect to get into an accident every single year (and then some).
- aoeusnth1 9y agoAnd according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microlife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microlife , the first 20 minutes of moderate exercise is worth 2 microlifes (or -2 micromorts). At 15 miles/hour, the means the first 5 miles of biking costs you about 0.25-0.5 micromorts of accident risk and gives you +2 microlifes of fitness. Riding in a car, on the other hand, incurs accident risk AND has effects on fitness.
- photojosh 9y ago23x sounded pretty high, and indeed the GP's Wikipedia article cites 23x as one option from the original 1979 work, or 11.5x as a more recent one. The latter seems much more reasonable, and a quick look at stats for Australia suggests current stats put it at something like 6-10x. But the more interesting article to me was [0] which presents a study that says around 30% of "cycling" deaths are due to natural causes such as heart disease. [0]: https://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2015/09/01/is-it-just-vehicles-or-are-mamils-killing-themselves-too/ https://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2015/09/01/is-it-jus...
- fyfy18 9y agoThe key part of your clickbait article is this: > It also signals that older males need to be mindful that vigorous cycling – as with any form of exercise – can be fatal if the rider has a serious medical condition like heart disease. It’s likely though that the exercise benefit of cycling prevents many more premature deaths from disease that it causes. It would be interesting to break down the statistics on cycling to seperate those who cycle to commute, and those who cycle for leisure. I’d assume they have vastly different mortality causes.
- liveoneggs 9y agoI asked a question. Notice the '?' mark at the end
- 0xfaded 9y agoMy hang gliding instructor, who was also an avid cyclist, explained that cycling is only dangerous because you spend so much time close to the ground. This is a common joke in aviation, but sharing a thermal with multiple gliders whizzing around is a little disconcerting.
- piyh 9y agoYes, but the reduced risk of heart disease/stroke/obesity more than makes up for it. Also better lung function and less car fumes breathed in since your car cabin isn't trapping them.
- pessimizer 9y agoI'm not sure it does; urban biking is very dangerous.
- piyh 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling#Health_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling#Health_effects
- Havoc 9y agoYou should be able to game that somehow in a legitimate way like Johnny says. Most types of oscillating movements should do
- jschwartzi 9y agoWith Fitbit you will even get steps for turning the steering wheel while driving, so this is definitely something you can(and should) game.
- plorg 9y agoI routinely rack up thousands of steps playing my cello, even with my Fitbit on my left wrist. I suspect the numbers would be significantly higher if I wore it on the wrist of my bow arm.
- jschwartzi 9y agoThe first week I had mine I was getting tons of steps while I was sitting in the office working. A little googling revealed that Fitbit uses the settings for handedness versus where you're wearing your fitbit to tune the sensitivity of their algorithm. Long story short, I set mine up to say that I'm right-handed and that I wear mine on my right hand, even though I'm left-handed. Their resting heart rate algorithm is pretty bad, too. My RHR goes from 56 when I'm sedentary for a day to 61 during the week when I'm working out regularly. Looking at the actual chart there's a nice line at 55-56 where my RHR actually is, but I guess Fitbit just uses a moving average. I'm excited at the prospect of insurance companies using these algorithms to determine that I'm unhealthy.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoThey would prefer that healthy people don't get discounts since they are such low risks for claims. Better to incentivize the couch potatoes as a preventative health measure to reduce losses and have you subsidize the lifestyle of those who won't make an effort.
- CivilEngineer 9y agoWhy don't they just give a discount for not being overweight or obese? They can check that with a scale and a tape meausure (are your hips wider than the widest part of your gut, etc?)
- glibgil 9y agoStrap your phone to your ankle
- partiallypro 9y agoYes, I was just looking at stationary bikes and this was one of the solutions, but it was strapping the fitbit to your leg/shoe laces.
- beedogs 9y agoTape it to a paint can at Home Depot and have them mix it up in the machine. You get the discount and people will think you're some sort of marathon runner.
- lostlogin 9y agoSome sort incentivised exercise was offered at our local school. The winner was putting the fit bit on a kid each breakntime and getting excellent result. Strapping then on young children gets good numbers fast.