In theory, cycling could be comparable, but in practice I find it worse (and I spent 10+ years riding ~10 hours per week). With road cycling, you spend a lot of

In theory, cycling could be comparable, but in practice I find it worse (and I spent 10+ years riding ~10 hours per week). With road cycling, you spend a lot of time riding on roads that are extremely unpleasant to share with cars which is quite stressful. With mountain biking, you need to live near good trails or either you have the same sharing the road problem as road cycling but worse because mtbs suck on the road or you have to drive which adds a lot of overhead. Plus I find wearing walking clothes a lot nicer than lycra, which is basically necessary for long rides.