A new study says that biking to work or as a recreational pastime is associated with a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and many other studies show that you can also reduce your risk for many other diseases.

The study published in PLOS Medicine Journal included 24,623 men and 27,890 women in Denmark, recruited between the ages of 50 and 65. They were asked to self-report about biking habits, recreationally and as a method of transportation to work. The data was collected in the Danish National Database Registry.

The authors of the study found that participants who were “habitual cyclers” were less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes and the risk fell even lower, the more hours spent cycling per week. Five years after the initial information was collected, participants were contacted for follow up. Cycling habits were reassessed. People who had now taken up habitual cycling had a 20% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, compared to non-cyclers.

Researchers adjusted for diet, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, physical activity aside from cycling, waist circumference and BMI. Still the findings are robust enough to encourage a habit of cycling, early in life, and then perpetuating it as a means of travel to and from school and work, and as an extra-curricular fitness activity. Making cycling habitual could help to minimize risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

It was also encouraging for the researchers to see that even when cycling was taken up in middle age, it still helped to lower the risk, and the positive health impact was seen in both genders. With childhood and teen obesity rates high, and two thirds of adults in the U.S. overweight or obese, a cycling habit that can easily fit into one’s daily schedule and have an impact on a chronic disease associated with excess weight, could be an easy sell to the general public.

In another study, according to the British Medical Association, cycling just 20 miles a week can reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 50%. A major study of 10,000 civil servants suggested that those who cycled 20 miles over the period of a week were half as likely to suffer heart disease as their non-cycling colleagues.