Humans Riding Bikes Are More Energy-Efficient Than Any Other Animal On The Planet

Forget about your dumb Toyota Prius, the king of transportation efficiency was invented in 1885 and it runs on whatever you had for breakfast. According to Scientific American’s newly updated report, based on consumption of calories to transport one gram of mass one kilometer, the most efficient mode of transport on the planet is a human riding a bicycle. Using simple mechanical systems to augment our weird bipedal human body’s ability to move more efficiently, bikes make us significantly more efficient than even the most agile swimming salmon or floating bird. We kinda knocked it out of the park with bikes, didn’t we?

The two main expenses of energy while traveling are gravity and forward motion, and biking all but eliminates the force needed to fight both. By putting humans in a sitting position and letting the bike take the forces of gravity, the only effort we really spend fighting gravity is when we come to a hill. Similarly, by transmitting our leg force to wheels and bearings, we roll with much lower friction. The bike also allows us to coast, something legs simply don’t do. Until Horses develop their own way to use wheels and bearings, I think we’re safe at the top of the efficiency pyramid. 

“They [bicycles] turn humans into this hyper-efficient terrestrial locomotor because they make being on land more like swimming,” Tyson Hedrick, a comparative physiologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told Scientific American.

In fact, the only way to make humans move farther and faster on the same caloric expenditure is to wrap a bicycle in a more aerodynamic package, like a velomobile, to fight the wind resistance as well. This, SciAm mentions, gives humans an “aquatic efficiency” like we’re swimming on land, and I think that’s pretty cool. 

The design that bicycles evolved into by 1885 was actually a pretty efficient one on its own, and things have only gotten more efficient as we developed better understandings of mechanical motion and the process of building machines. With better gearing, lighter materials, skinnier tires, bearings with less drag, and forward riding positions for better aero, bikes are significantly smoother and more efficient today than they ever have been before. But can bikes be improved? Of course they can. 

Not only does this Works By Design, um, design deliver human power to the rear wheel of a bicycle better than traditional crank gearing can, but it takes the rotational exertion out of the formula. Our legs are much more efficient in a marching motion than a spinning motion, because that’s what they evolved to do. Up down up down up down, yeah, that feels natural. 

As battery technology improves, so too do e-bikes and the efficiency therein. In combination with human power, a small battery e-bike can be even more efficient than human power alone. This tech has developed in leaps and bounds over the last twenty years, and it will hopefully continue to get even better and get more people out of their cars and onto two wheels, especially for short journeys. 

If you want to be as efficient as you possibly can be, build yourself a nice aerodynamic recumbent velomobile with a small e-bike assist motor this summer. Not only will you be able to get a little exercise, you’ll probably have more fun, too! It’s way faster than riding a traditional bicycle, and depending on your traffic situation, might be even faster than driving.