Health Benefits of a Faraday

We can all agree that there are a lot of reasons to ride a Faraday: avoiding gridlock, improving your commute, reducing your carbon footprint, and just smiling more like our first time Faraday riders below.

But they can’t actually be good for your health, right? After all, we’ve heard cycling purists claim that we’re riding “cheater bikes” and avoiding the much needed exercise that one gets from hopping on a regular bike. A new study highlighted in the New York Times yesterday casts doubt on that theory.
Here’s the quick rundown. The smart folks at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the Department of Integrative Physiology conducted an experiment over 4 weeks with 20 “sedentary” commuters. The basic question was to find out if using a motorized pedal assist bike (like a Faraday) would actually lead to health improvements for the riders. It turns out that after just one month of going about their normal daily commute with some motorized assistance, the participants returned to the lab for a follow up, and – wait for it – saw “significantly greater aerobic fitness, better blood sugar control, and, as a group, a trend toward less body fat.”
According to the monitored data, all participants had achieved the minimum activity goal of riding for 40 minutes, 3 times a week. Several participants even went on to buy electric bikes once the experiment was over to keep the good times rolling. As the study’s lead author put it simply: “It’s exercise that is fun.” We couldn’t agree more. Head on over to read the full article, and don’t miss the comments section that include some great testimonials from happy and healthy electric bike riders.