Editorial | How cycling improved my gaming abilities.

(Yes that is me in the picture)

By Sam Coles:

Video games is not the only hobby I enjoying doing, 4 years ago I got into long distance road cycling as my Dad introduced me to it and I loved it as I was able to explore for miles upon miles. I now ride between 40 to 60 plus miles a day which it keeps me in great shape, not only that I found that it has improved my skills as video game player, now I know what you’re thinking “How does that work”? Well I want to discuss how cycling and exercise in general can improve your skills.

About 5 years ago I didn’t really do much exercise, yes I would use a bicycle to get around but I would generally only do 10 miles at best I just saw it as a mode of transport and nothing else. I’ve been playing video games for most of my life and I was competent but I wouldn’t say I was amazing at them, I mean all you have to do is look at my kill/death ratio on Modern Warfare 2 compared to later iterations of Call of Duty.   

In 2014 I had to go see my friend a lot in Pucklechurch, which was about 13 miles from my place, at first I was using a mountain bike however it wasn’t long until I got a road bike. My father gave me his old road bike that he built himself when I was a small child with custom parts imported from France; we’re talking about an old school road bike here where we have shifters on the downtube coupled with 700c X 19 tyres. I started to enjoy the speeds I could get out of the bike, within six months I was averaging between 20 to 30 mph on flat roads coupled with 17 mph up hills.

Now you’re wondering what this has to do with improving my skills as a gamer, well what you have to be aware of is there are certain attributes of cycling that you obtain to help you keep going. Cycling improves memorisation, reflexes and general awareness of the space around me, this helped me with gaming especially online games, in games such as Call of Duty I found that I was doing insanely well because my reflexes had improved so much I was racking up triple kills every five minutes.

Memorisation helped me with games as I was able to traverse open worlds without looking at mini maps, not only that I was a lot better at solving puzzles in certain games, so I went back to older Resident Evil games and I was breezing through them. Spatial awareness really helped me with racing games and games like Grand Theft Auto, and in generally just made aware of everything within environments even down to me being able to spot snipers instantly in Battlefield. In games like Grand Theft Auto I found that I crashing less, as I could judge gaps better in between cars in tandem with my sharpened reflexes.

I found this to be more prominent when I revisited Burnout Paradise recently when I reviewed the remaster on Xbox One, I was crashing less compared to 15 year old Sam when I played back in 2008. Now don’t get me wrong I still crash in Burnout Paradise because as you know the game is not exactly slow, but I was crashing less frequently.

Cycling is something that I really enjoy these days and I love the fact that it has helped my gaming ability to a certain extent. I would highly encourage to take up exercise that increases reflexes if you’re gamer, plus just do it anyway to stay in shape and remember do something that you enjoy don’t force yourself to do something you know you’re not going to like.