Green Pedal Power

Source: Somerset County Council

A cyclist can travel 1,037km (644 miles) on the energy equivalent of one litre of petrol.

Regular cycling can make you as fit as someone who is ten years younger.

A cyclist consumes 1/50th of the oxygen of a car making the same journey.

A twice daily half-hour commute will, over a year, consume the energy equivalent of 24lb of fat.

In 1949, 34 per cent of all mechanised journeys were made by bicycle. Fifty years later that figure had fallen to 2 per cent.

The rate of serious heart disease for civil servants who cycle 20 miles or more a week is 50 per cent lower than for their sedentary colleagues.