Today we present you interesting facts about bikes – all you definitely need to know, so read on!
ABOUT THE HISTORY
First off all the term “bicycle” first entered into popular usage in France in the 1860s. But who is the bike founder? Although Leonardo da Vinci drew some rough sketches of a contraption that looked like a bicycle, the Frenchman De Sivrac built the first bicycle-type vehicle in 1690. It was referred to as a hobbyhorse. However, it did not have pedals. Those were added in 1840 by a Scottish blacksmith, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, who is credited with inventing the real bicycle. So far so good, but there is more you need to know about the bike, bicycle or velocipedes. What is a velocipedes? Before the word “bicycle” become popular bikes were typically called “velocipedes”. Maybe you have heard of the Penny-farthing before, an early type of bicycle that featured a front wheel significantly larger than the rear. The name comes from the old British Penny and Farthing coins which represent the large and small wheels. It’s enough history for a day.
ABOUT THE NUMBERS
Did you know that about 100 million bicycles are manufactured worldwide each year. There are roughly one billion bicycles in the world, about twice as many as motor vehicles and roughly half a billion of them are in China. Oh WOW! And another fact is that maintaining a bike annually costs twenty times less than maintaining and driving a car. So let’s take a bike more often! Also because the bicycle is the most efficient vehicle ever devised: a human on a bicycle is more efficient in calories expended per kilo and per kilometer than a train, truck, airplane, boat, car, or motorcycle. It is 3 times as efficient as walking. And it’s also a perfect way to save the environment. If Americans double their bike use to 2% of all urban trips, they would save 3.5 billion litres of gasoline annually. On a bicycle you can travel up to 1037 kilometres on the energy equivalent of a single litre of gas.
ABOUT THE HEALTH
Cycling three hours or 30 kilometres per week halves your risk of heart disease and strokes. So if you ride a bike every day it’s only about 4,3 kilometers per day – easy! And for all the woman’s outside: Women who walk or bike 30 minutes a day have a lower risk of breast cancer. And in general a study of nearly 2,400 adults found out, that those who biked to work were fitter, leaner, less likely to be obese and had better triglyceride levels, blood pressure and insulin levels than those who didn’t active commute to work. Also an adult cyclist typically has a level of fitness equivalent to someone 10 years younger and a life expectancy two years above the average.
And last but least for all the helmet haters and hair fetishist outside: Helmets have been found to be 85% effective in preventing head injury. So always use a helmet!
So let’s be serious, what are you waiting for?
Book your bike here: https://www.unlimitedbiking.com/new-york/rentals/
56 W 56th St, New York, NY 10019
(212) 749-4444
