In “Bike for Life: How to Ride to 100″ (Avalon Press, $16.95), authors Roy Wallack and Bill Katovsky lay out a premise that says cycling — with its combination of fun, ease, travel, social interaction, joint-gentleness and physical challenge — is the ideal sport for longevity.

As Wallack puts it, cycling is a panacea that can help you “roll into the triple digits –miles and age — on a bike instead of in a wheelchair.”

The book, a manual of sorts organized in digestible articles, sidebars and lists, offers how-to exercises and riding advice. (Wallack writes on health for the Los Angeles Times; Katovsky founded Triathlete magazine.)

On the longevity front, there’s an “antiaging strength plan” to revive reaction time, methods for avoiding back cramping and injury while riding, and advice on cycling and its effects on osteoporosis.

Bonus: The book includes interviews with aging stars of the sport such as Mike Sinyard, founder of Specialized Bikes, mountain-bike pioneer Gary Fisher and adventure cyclist John Howard, who might just be proving the authors’ premise to be true.

How bikeable is your community? The bikeability checklist made available by bicyclinginfo, can help you find the answer. Inside you’ll find insightful questions, allowing you to evaluate your neighborhood’s bikeability. In addition to the questions, the Checklist provides both immediate answers and long-term solutions to your neighborhood’s potential problems.

Pick a place to ride a bike, like the route to school or a friend’s house. As you ride, use the checklist to describe problem areas and things to change. After the ride, answer all of the questions and you’ll see how your route rates on the bikeability scale. Take heart if you find problems, there are many ways you can make things better.

Or you can fill-out an online version of this checklist at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website. Click on the link below, and then click on ‘How bikeable is your community?’ in the bottom-right corner.