Will a bike ride a day keep the doctor away?

From the Portland Tribune…

Will a bike ride a day keep the doctor away?

Researcher says Portland’s bike paths will cut its health costs

By peter korn

The Portland Tribune, Mar 3, 2011

Carie Weisenbach-Folz says that while living in Columbus, Ind., 12 years ago, she never would have imagined adopting the bicycling lifestyle she has here in Portland.

Weisenbach-Folz and her three young children are now daily bike commuters, taking 6-year-old Cody to school and back every day from their North Portland home. Husband Alan Folz commutes to work in Beaverton every day through a combination of biking and public transportation. Even when Carie and Alan find a baby-sitter and have a date night to themselves, they often head out on their tandem bike.

Weisenbach-Folz sees biking as a means to staying healthy. If she didn’t bike, she might end up going to a gym for a comparable, but expensive, daily workout. Yet, she says if it weren’t for this city’s extensive bike infrastructure, especially the bike lanes, she probably wouldn’t be out on two wheels.

So biking is helping Weisenbach-Folz and her family stay healthy, but at a cost. Portland has spent an estimated $57 million on its biking infrastructure, to the chagrin of many who feel the money would have been better spent elsewhere. Even with that investment, just more than 6 percent of Portland residents commute by bike. And that makes a groundbreaking study published last week in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health that much more interesting – and important.

Read on here.