While some diehards cycle to work all year round, most are about to take to the streets as weather permits in the next few weeks.

Cycling to work and back every day does more than keep you fit, spare the environment and clear your head. It can also be fun.

Elina Needham is a part-time bike commuter in Helsinki. In the summer, she rides along one particular route to her work at a translation company’s office in Sörnäinen. She feels sorry for the motorists stuck in morning traffic jams as she pedals by on the adjacent cycle path. After all, it is she who benefits from a fresh wake-up on her early commute, which provides light physical exercise and gets her blood flowing, coupled with inspiring glimpses of forest life in Laajasalo, residential areas yawning at the alarm clock buzz in Kulosaari and the coastal sea perpetually pushing across Vanhankaupunginlahti towards the mouth of Vantaanjoki. The view is never quite the same through a car or a train window, and when you talk exercise, the motorised approach may only qualify as an exercise in futility.

For those with an eye for life’s tiny enjoyments bicycling to work beside the water on a nippy morning may indeed open up the whole day differently, compared with the dull confinement of engine-powered transport.

Under the auspices of authorities and employers

Good cycle paths are essential for bike commuters, as is the ability to find them. By and large, Helsinki fares well in maintaining a comprehensive network of cycle paths that is in reasonably good shape. With Helsinki Region Transport’s web-based Journey Planner for Cycling, you can discover different route options displayed on a map, supported with detailed street name and distance info, simply by keying in your departure and destination addresses.

Governments across Europe have begun to apply attractive tax deductions on bike commuting in the name of green transport. Employers also have other ways to encourage their good staff to ride the bike. On days when he leaves his own wheels behind, Helsinki resident Miikka Haimila, a hardworking cultural preserver with the museum authority, can borrow a bike from his work to quickly dart between his employer’s various city sites, thereby saving both time and money. He finds it calming to know that the bike is there exactly when he needs it during the working day and poses virtually no parking problems. Moreover, his employer lends bicycles for test rides to any employees contemplating cycling to work regularly.

Opportunities aplenty, risks in check

Whether you prefer to brave the wind upright or to duck down aerodynamically on a drop bar, there is no shortage of choice when it comes to bike buying. Today’s conventional Dutch-style stadsfiets, English roadsters and other utility bicycles are complemented with more contemporary developments, such as mountain bikes, folding bikes and hybrid models. And you can enhance your experience by way of smart accessorising. If you use your head today, you don a helmet to use your head tomorrow.

Theft and vandalism are always issues for bike owners, but so far both Elina’s and Miikka’s bikes have been spared. Erring on the side of caution with a robust lock or two and a choice of secure parking spots helps in this respect. Miikka’s riskiest commute involved a camera-touting tourist who lost sight of traffic and backed right into the cycle path. Fortunately for both, the brakes worked. Accidents notwithstanding, the benefits of commuting by bike clearly outweigh the risks, if for no other reason than the contrast that doing so provides. As Miikka puts it, “Cycling to work may make standing in a crowded bus, all dry and warm, feel like the best idea ever!”

MIKA OKSANEN - HT
Lehtikuva - Pekka Sakki