1. Travel
A real bike provides transportation.
2. Moving and Resting at the Same Time
A real bike allows you to move and rest at the same time, while you are descending the slope, saving you energy for the next big hill.
3. Cool Air in your Hair
The cool air in your hair feels so good when you go down the slope. It feels like a reward for all the hard work you put into getting to the top of the hill.
4. No Gym Membership Required
A gym membership usually requires some kind of regular payment. Unless you want to become a professional competitive weightlifter, a gym membership is really useless. There are so many ways to be fit and active outside a gym that the gym is really a luxury for middle-class and upper-class folks or people who choose to live luxuriously. Instead of a gym, you ride on a cheap bicycle. You may have to pump air into the tires and try to avoid bumpy roads to preserve the longevity of the tires, but this regular maintenance is relatively low-cost compared to a monthly or annual gym membership. The regular maintenance may just cost you a bit of your energy reserves and your brain power.
5. Man-Powered Vehicle
The fact that the bike is a man-powered vehicle, not a gas-powered or electric-powered vehicle, implies that the only fuel it needs is the fuel that you consume and the energy you output. While a car burns fuel through a process called combustion, you are burning fuel through a process called aerobic respiration.
Because you need fuel to power the bike, you have to eat good-quality food in the proper amount. You also need to drink water (not coffee, tea, alcohol, soda) to replenish the water loss. It may be useful to eat food and drink water at around the same time, because the food can moderate the ionic concentration of the cells.
Certainly, if you do not eat food or drink water, then your body will die. If you do not put gas in the car, then the car will not run. Unlike a human body, though, the car can relive whenever gas is put in again. You, on the other hand, are made of flesh and blood. If you're dead, you're dead permanently. Hence the sanctity of human life.
6. The Economics of Energy Expenditures
The real bike is a good way to transport yourself from one location to another efficiently, whereas the exercise bike is merely for exercise (aka wasting away the precious energy reserves in your body). Your energy is not spent on anything productive; it's just spent for the sake of spending. I don't know about you, but I believe that is not a very economical way to spend energy. It's like buying something at the store and not using it. What a waste of money/energy.
7. Powerful Muscles, Baby!
I live in a hilly region. There are easy routes and hard routes. The easy routes are easy, because the ground is relatively flat. The hard routes are hard, because the ground is relatively sloped up or down. Over time, I find that my leg muscles are becoming more and more powerful. Powerful leg muscles can ride up the slope faster and easier than before. I tend to switch gears a lot to make biking upslope easier for me. Sometimes, I forget to change gears but notice that I can ride up the slope without changing gears. I think this proves that I am definitely becoming stronger.
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