Could your daily cycle commute be saving your life?

I train pretty hard in the evenings, a desk job would allow me to recover.

This is not news.

It also stands a good chance of being statistically flawed unless it was very carefully designed.

The people who exercise may be less likely to be in danger of dying in the short term (whatever that was deemed to be in this study) not because they exercise but because people who are unfit are both less likely to exercise and more likely to die soon.

All together now, correlation does not equal causation.

Though in this case, there probably are relatively few reasons not to pretend that it does.

I've now read in a couple of articles that less is more, for example three vigorous 30-minute rides per week results in greater weight loss and better general health than three vigorous 60-minute rides.  If this is true, and I (not being an expert) cannot see how it could be, it is crummy news.  I want to keep thinking that riding hard for hours and feeling like I'm going to die makes me healthier than everybody else, plus does anything sound less-satisfying than a 30-minute ride?

It's interesting that it only needs an hour of moderate (not intensive) exercise, so walking for an hour also the same effect. However, cycling is a lot more fun than just walking.

This isn't really news - it's long been known that regular but fairly modest exercise is all you need and that more intensive or extreme stuff isn't necessary for general health (good for beating your mates though...). 

But the message is worth repeating for all those who still think exercise means they have to take out a gym membership - and then only go twice, or don't even start. Cycling and walking, of course, are excellent ways of combining exercise and existing activity (e.g. going to work, the shops, etc.). But you knew that.

I would disagree, it's your life style that helps you live longer, providing there is nothing in your genes that rears its ugly head. Cycling keeps you fit.  Cycling in Heavy traffic can increase your chances of an early departure of your luck runs out. 

Well I'm having to see an eye specialist as I may have pigment dispersion syndrome and vigorous exercise may be bad for me. You can't win!!

Oh God yes! I've been on holiday this week with no opportunity to ride and it's killing me!

Well, not exactly news, as the benefits of regular exercise have been known about for decades, but it's always useful to have some more amunition to counter the desk jockeys who tell you that cycling is dangerous.

Mayer Hillman in "Cycling Towards Health and Safety" (1992) showed that the benefits of cycling outweighed the risks by 20:1 with other research puting it as high as 80:1, and regular cyclists live two years longer than average.

Being a pedant. Surely its "prolongs" your life. At the end of the day nothing saves our lives, we all die. Feeling cynical and realistic.

Does the cycling desk count on Strava though?