MODMO Celebrates World Bicycle Day

Today, cycling enthusiasts all over the world are celebrating World Bicycle Day and MODMO has decided to join them.

This holiday, organised by the United Nations, aims to celebrate an age-old means of transportation, promoting bicycles as a way to stay healthy, and on a broader scale, as a tool for global development.

At MODMO we strongly believe in the bicycle’s potential to change peoples’ lives. We built the Saigon with the aim to develop an ebike so powerful, so intuitive, so useful and so fun to ride that you won’t want to travel on anything else. This in turn should have a huge impact both for you and for the planet.

Let us explain.

Cycling Has Tons of Health Benefits

It’s not a new concept that cycling is good for your body and your mind. Research has long linked cycling to weight loss and overall physical health, as well as a decreased risk of developing disease.

Even just riding to and from work can carry significant health benefits. One 2017 study found that cycle commuters had a 46% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 45% lower risk of developing cancer.

Cycling can also be linked to better mental health. Exercising releases endorphins and serotonin into your brain which improves your mood and reduces stress - we wrote a nice big juicy story about it here. Have a read!

It’s not just push bikes that bring these kinds of benefits. Ebikes, like the Saigon, are also great for your health. Research shows that elevating your heart rate even just a little bit will allow you to burn calories - in fact lower-intensity exercise like the kind you would get from riding a pedal-assist ebike could be one of the best ways to burn fat! This is because of the way your body sources energy to fuel your exercise. We’ve gone into more detail in this blog.

Cycling Could be Key to Global Development

The UN argues that the promotion of cycling won’t just have an impact on individual wellbeing, it could also be a powerful development tool because it enables mobility where people may not otherwise have the means to travel far. The bicycle is a cheap and practical means of transport for everyone.

According to the UN, bicycles increase a person’s carrying capacity by five times when compared to walking, and the distance people can travel by four times. This significantly decreases the time it takes to get to schools, clinics, markets, etc and increases your flexibility in terms of what you carry and where.

Being able to move around independently can also be instrumental to people having a voice to get involved in decisions in their community and having closer, more equitable interactions with the wider globe. One key example of this is the role that the bicycle played in empowering women to fight for their right to vote. American civil rights leader and suffragette, Susan B Anthony, famously dubbed the bicycle the “Freedom Machine”, as it allowed women independent freedom of movement and empowered them to push for their right to equality.

Even today, independence of movement very much equates to someone having a voice in their community and the ability to express it.

Bicycles as a Means of Sustainable Transport

Finally, a key part of what World Bicycle Day is promoting is sustainable transport - something that we are also campaigning for at MODMO.

If the world continues to emit the same amount of carbon, we have less than 7 years until the planet passes a tipping point of irreversible change. This means that the planet will, with certainty, become unlivable.

At MODMO, we want to be part of a sustainable future. This is the very essence of the products we make! We are also working towards a zero-emissions supply chain, localising production within a 40km radius of our Vietnam office to reduce the environmental impact of transporting parts all over the world.

By celebrating World Bicycle Day, we hope to raise more awareness about just how brilliant cycling is and how beneficial it is to society and our planet.

But this is also an ongoing mission for us. MODMO is constantly pushing to keep creating products with this vision in mind, with continued research, crazy ideas and your thoughts and feedback, so that together we can be part of a cleaner, healthier and sustainable future.