If you have a short trip to make choosing to cycle instead of driving will improve your health, your bank balance and your community.
Quicker
Whether you ride to work, shops or to school, city trips of less than three kilometres generally take less time by bicycle than by car.
Better health
Cycling two or three times a week will increase your muscle tone and aerobic fitness. It will strengthen your heart, lower your resting pulse and reduce blood fat levels. Cycling burns body fat. Cycling is one of the more comfortable forms of exercise, allowing people who are new to exercise to get fit safely and without undue strain.
Exercise is known to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. Cycling gets you outdoors, boosting your natural serotonin and endorphin levels.
Cleaner air and reduced congestion
Cycling is pollution free. For every three kilometres cycled instead of driven, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by up to one kilogram.
In Australia up to 40 per cent or urban land is used to provide infrastructure for cars and trucks. Cycling conserves roadway and residential space, which means less concrete, better land use and a more pleasant environment for people.
The Greater Geelong Cycle Strategy aims to encourage more people to cycle for fitness and for transport. Each bicycle is one less car on the road..
Saving money
The cost of buying and maintaining a bicycle is around one per cent of the cost of buying and maintaining a car. If you cycled 10 kilometres each way to work you would save an estimated $1700 a year in transport costs.
Transport (15.5 per cent) is second only to food (18.2 per cent) as the largest item of household expenditure in Australia
Get out on your bike and take a look at some of our better cycling paths, tracks and trails in Geelong.