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Comment by 8_hours_ago | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting... I am in my 20s and bike ~20 miles per day. Over the last 5 years I have had 3 broken bones due to bike accidents including one which required an ambulance ride. With few exceptions, I only go to the doctor for bike-related injuries and my annual physical. To my health insurance provider, do the benefits to my cardiovascular system and general fitness offset the cost to treat my injuries?

I am guessing the insurance companies are looking far enough into the future where the long term benefits to my health outweigh the short term risks, but they are definitely losing money in the short term.

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You are correct - this is interesting. I run, and in the last 2 years my only medical visits are for bacterial pneumonia (non-flu related, just appeared to be really bad luck) and a stress fracture in my knee from ‘overtraining’. The stress fracture involved 3 visits with an orthopedic surgeon, an x-ray, and an MRI.

Wonder what the tradeoff is there for my lifetime medical expenses if I wasn’t running?

To be fair, you also need to consider the tradeoff of continuing to run but not seeking treatment for any injuries sustained.

3 incidents per year at 20miles/day is higher than the statistical average. Are you biking in a way to increase the likelihood of an incident, biking in an area that is less safe than the average bike ride, or did you just have an unlucky year?

That is 3 incidents over 5 years. I don’t think that is too much of a statistical anomaly. One of the injuries was from a pedestrian stepping into the bike lane without looking, one was from a car merging into me, and one was from a collision with another cyclist while racing.

I will agree that 3 incidents over 5 years is closer to the normal.

Could just be biking in an area that has no biking infrastructure (i.e. bike lanes well separated from roads). I commute to work by bike daily and the most dangerous part of that is by far when I leave the cycleways between towns and have to be on the road. Motorists everywhere (except maybe Denmark or the Netherlands) seem to have a very fuck you attitude towards cyclists taking away their road; this shows mainly in disregarding right of way or attempting unsafe overtaking manoeuvres.

Someone who ran the equivalent of ~20 miles per day (a 5K per day, maybe?) for 5 years would probably have their share of expensive medical issues too. Runners get fractures, they get in traffic accidents, they get pneumonia, etc. So in a straight comparison between running vs. biking as far as the insurance company is concerned, it's probably a wash.

20 miles per day and 5K per day are not comparable. Probability of injury is a function of the quantity/intensity you are performing the action, and of course running 7x farther will be result in more injury.

I think OP was comparing 5k running to 20 miles biking. That is still probably inaccurate, since a 20 mile bike is at least 60 minutes, and a 5k run is at most 30 minutes. It would be more accurate to compare a 10k or even 10 mile run to a 20mi bike.

Of course it also depends on the physical condition of the person, especially their susceptibility to stress related injuries, and the running surface. Generally speaking running is much higher impact than biking, which is why you so often see runners with a stress injury training on a stationary bike.

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