Cycling over Running, ALWAYS

You have a better option to get to places faster, be more efficient, and have fun! It’s called cycling.

I, the crazy avid road cyclist, frequently find myself rolling down flats and steep hills and seeing dumb runners always on the side of the road. You can always see them with their vests with integrated storage, bottles, pacemakers, and fancy shoes and think, “Ha! Slowpoke, why would you even torture yourself into doing this?”

Now I know what the runner is thinking. “Aw man, it’s the hottest day of the year and that cyclist seems to be having so much more fun than I ever had in 3 years. Maybe I should throw away my weighted vests, bottles, and storage to have fun like him. Yeah that sounds great! Maybe road cycling, or mountain biking?”

Obviously, cycling is OBJECTIVELY better than running.

Everything begins with learning how to do something. Cycling happens to be easier than running. While cycling can take mere minutes (15 minutes to a day at max), running still requires you to learn proper technique, build endurance, and find out what your average pace should be without gassing out.

It took me more than two years to figure out the actual pacing strategy as a cross country (XC) and mid-long distance track & field athlete, and finally build my endurance to average a low 6-minute mile. This meant I always felt like complete scheiße before the one-mile mark while sweating an ocean and nearly dying from exhaustion.

Cycling typically appears scary to 3-year-olds, but to most kids and adults who are older, they are just thinking of how to get it over with and claim that amazing cyclist status. Then you start to think about pushing limits and going fast, which accelerates your learning speed, eventually making you a beginner and likely, a commuter (which is a nice way of saying you just go from point A to B).

While it’s easier to learn how to get into cycling, the variations of cycling after you get a knack for it are more interesting or fun than standard commuting, and obviously, running.

Once a commuter, you start to compare and determine what kind of cyclist you want to be. Whether it be a road, track, tour, mountain bike (MTB), BMX, or even a triathlete, you’ll have something for you, guaranteed. This vision of yourself propels and locks your mind into being a better cyclist while avoiding the pain and suffering running provides.

Track cyclists racing in the “Madison” event, preparing a hand sling. Track cycling is a hard variation of cycling, but one of the funnest of all, which everyone should try at least once.

Bikes usually come as freewheels and fixed gears (fixies). Freewheels being that you can stop pedalling (coasting) while still moving. On the other end of the stick, fixies have no coasting and you must keep pedalling. This also means if you pedal forward, you move forwards, and pedalling backwards moves you back. Again, most bikes are freewheels, meaning even if you are tired from going all out, you can still rest for a few moments while moving before pedalling again.

Bikes are also very low impact and rarely fatigue you unless you go all in or race somebody. This allows you to sustain a moderate speed without getting tired in the slightest, making pacing one of the easiest things to master 

Gearing also comes into play, as you can go into a harder or easier gear when fatigued or climbing hills.

Even if you’re tired for the first few days cycling, you can still build up endurance by staying consistent and not giving everything you have in the first 2 minutes.

Running, on the other hand, provides no mechanical assistance, which means all energy is used and made solely by YOU. Evidently, you end up spending weeks building mileage when you could have been doing something else (preferably cycling). Muscles also tire unevenly, leading to larger muscles significantly working harder than small ones. This means you can frequently expect your shins, calves and hip flexors to struggle and burn while your quads, glutes, and hamstrings feel essentially nothing.

Once, I did >6 miles for a week for XC, and ended up building nearly no mileage and sore calves and shins. Meanwhile, my hamstrings felt just as good as ever since they barely do anything.

(Mountain bikers getting into some nasty crashes. Don’t worry, unless your doing any form or mountain biking or tricks, this is never going to happen)

Speaking of doing barely anything, when you get hurt on a stroll, you will always feel like something isn’t doing what it should. Shifting is off, seat alignment is angled 2 degrees left, your ankle is as bothersome as ever, or simply breathing wrong. Whatever it is, something will always cause at least some injury somewhere down the road.

Cycling tends to have a bad reputation when it comes to injuries. You always see some mountain biker flying at +20km/h headfirst into a tree or doing biker yoga (aka doing the scorpion because your bike wants you to). The thing is, injuries typically occur most when you start cycling and are typically just minor scratches and the occasional light bleeding. But more likely you’ll experience lower back pain from an abysmal posture, some awkwardness in your arms, and extremely rare knee pain. Even if you get a nasty crash, it's likely you’re just inexperienced and need to build up to it.

Even I, someone with Osgood-Schlatter's Disease (a growth condition in your knee), have rarely experienced knee pain from cycling. What I have dealt with instead is accidentally falling from turning at a steep angle, going fully OTB (over the bars), using dirt as a slip and slide (most recent and painful), and crashing at +15mph into a wood fence (my first crash!). All of these branch off from inexperience, and with more time practicing similar aspects more safely, you’re going to 100% feel confident doing more crazy things, like stairs.

While you're dealing with slightly overpriced repairs on your bike after getting your bike scratched, running injuries are much worse. For starters, you get to deal with things like twisted ankles, shin splints, frequent knee pain, and falling.

(Sprained ankles are a nightmare to deal with and common in every form of running. Good luck managing this.)

I dealt with most of these throughout my short-lived running career, especially in XC. My first time running Bernal Hills, I twisted my ankle on a root or rock and sat there in the middle of the trail for minutes before seeing another kid. They didn’t help and instead stepped on my hurt ankle and kept running. Running isn’t as devastating as cycling, but the sheer pain you go through is far worse than what you’ll experience daily. Add on some daily knee pain, sore legs, difficulty breathing, and now you've got a starting kit for running!

It's safe to say (unless you get hurt) that unless you are frequently getting into injuries, there's no reason to say cycling is worse than running due to it being immensely easier to work with, learn, and manage with constant injuries. Running is just the thing that convinces you it's healthy, then devastates your entire body.

So, if you’re not biking now, what’s your excuse?

Works Cited

The Body Mechanic. “Dodgy Ankles? – Learn How To Strap Your Ankle To Prevent Further Problems.” Dodgy Ankles? – Learn How To Strap Your Ankle To Prevent Further Problems., https://thebodymechanic.com.au/anklesprainvideo/. Accessed 30 August 2025.

mbiking.channel. “Mountain Biking Yoga.” Mountain Biking Yoga, mbiking.channel, https://www.instagram.com/p/DNAiVNXNRHe/. Accessed 30 August 2025.

Palermo, Angelina. “What is Track Cycling?” USA Cycling, 1 June 2023, https://usacycling.org/article/what-is-track-cycling. Accessed 30 August 2025.