Hop on a bike!

Top 10 reasons to ride your bike, instead of driving, according to a poster in the window of downtown Chico bike shop Campus Bicycles (which includes getting your kids to ride their bikes to and from school instead of driving them …). ’Nuff said!

1. Twenty-five percent of all trips are made within a mile of home.

2. Just three hours of bicycling per week can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke by 50 percent.

3. Each U.S. rush-hour auto commuter spends an average of 50 hours a year stuck in traffic.

4. In 1964, 50 percent of kids rode to school and the obesity rate was 12 percent; in 2004, 3 percent rode to school and the obesity rate was 45 percent.

5. A 140-pound cyclist burns 508 calories while pedaling 14 miles in an hour.

6. In 2003, cars stalled in traffic wasted 5 billion gallons of fuel.

7. Between 1960 and today, the average weight of childen between the ages of 6 and 11 has increased 11 pounds.

8. Forty percent of all trips are within two miles of the home.

9. You can park 14 bikes in the same space you can park one car.

10. The United States could save 462 million gallons of gasoline a year by increasing cycling from 1 percent to 1.5 percent of all trips.