Zwift enthusiasts know that regular riders reap rewards of many sorts. But did you realize that Zwift acts as a time machine? #ReadOn.
A study published in June 2015 by the Healthy Urban Living research program at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) attempted to estimated how much the death rate in the Netherlands decreases through regular bicycle use.
Data collected for the survey shows the mobility of approximately 50,000 Dutch people. Researcher Dr Carlijn Kamphuis notes: “… we were able to calculate that on average, for every hour of cycling people live about an hour longer. For Dutch people, that equates to living for about six months longer for every 75 minutes of cycling each week.”
Did you catch that? For every hour of cycling, people live about an hour longer.
That means when you climb onto your steed in your pain cave and spend an hour sweating your way around Watopia, you’ve actually spent no time at all. You climb off your bike with just as many minutes left to live as when you climbed on.
We could debate the vagarities of the study as long as we’d like, but instead let’s just tuck this little nugget away for the next time our spouse complains about all the time we spend riding.
