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Comment by choot | Hacker News Reader

I used to cover 4 km in 5-10 minutes to school everyday on my moutain bike. Used to leave exactly at 6:55 when school starts at 7:05.

If I went slow, I would have definitely missed the class, this forced me to ride as fast as I could.

It definitely enhanced my cognitive skills.

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I remember liking the physical exhaustion when riding to HS on bike. It didn't make me struggle to follow or sleepy, quite the opposite. Good warmup and draining.

That's basically my story as well. Lacking a control group me I have no idea what it did to my cognitive skills, but I do know that I'm a pretty good cyclist now.

(Edit: I definitely feel more awake after a morning sprint, but I'd rather watch this story of science about "energy levels" unfold in full glory than point out the banality of activity being the opposite of being asleep)

Sounds nice, but I would just sweat for another 30 minutes and look all kinds of unpleasant. But good for you if you could pull it off.

Do either of those matter more than the exercise and cognitive improvement?

Well having a quality social life is imperative to mental health

Pro tip: dry shirt in your backpack.

Excercise is great but it does matter a little if i would be sticky and smelly.

Yeah, reason number one why I would never bike to work.

Even if I changed all my closed I doubt I would feel clean.

More and more places of work have showers available. Quite useful for biking in. Alternatively, you could go at a leisurely pace, but that's not as fun / makes it harder to justify the time spent.

If this is something you actually want to change, a few ideas beyond showers: 1) bike slowly (mentioned below; some folks don't like it, but the "slow" speeds up over time. I keep my HR under 140 and don't really sweat unless it's very hot, and this does still improve cardiovascular base fitness) 2) wipes (baby wipes, deodorant wipes, whatever) 3) clean shirt in bag 4) use a pannier, not a backpack 5) if you biked really hard, 5 minutes before arrival slow down and let your heart rate calm and let the breeze dry you off

I ride to work every day, closer to 20 minutes of moderately hard riding. It definitely feels like it helps me to wake up.

Same here. Whrn I can't (e.g. a foot of fresh snow), I feel really lethargic.

I work from home, but I have an exercise bike. Does that count as biking to work?

I did that at Stanford. Waited until the class-change-time bicyclopalypse passed (everybody rode bikes at that time and it was a madhouse) then rode like a maniac, dropped my bike on the lawn and slid into the last seat in the classroom just as the lecture began.

Same here. Nothing like a sprint to the trainstation to wake up.

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