# Association between Motivational Climate, Emotional Intelligence, and Bicycle Use in Schoolchildren
## 1 Introduction  
Among the wide range of activities proposed within the different motor situations that structure the Physical Education (PE) curriculum, cycling offers the opportunity to develop the fundamental motor skills necessary for the practice of physical activity throughout life [1], for the improvement of health [2], and for the assumption of a commitment to the environment through the creation of active and sustainable mobility habits [3, 4]. Therefore, cycling is associated with multiple benefits [5, 6], both for individual and collective health [7], offering the opportunity to practice heart-healthy physical activity in children and adolescents [8]. Moreover, as an active and environmentally friendly means of transport, it contributes to the reduction in gas emissions associated with the use of private motor vehicles [9, 10] while helping to achieve the 60 min of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) [11], which is necessary to reduce sedentary lifestyles and improve body composition parameters in children and adolescents [12]. Based on these arguments, governments and administrations consider it necessary to implement public policies for the promotion of cycling as a means of sustainable mobility [9, 13]; therefore, in many countries, programs aimed to promote cycling as active transport to schools (ATS) have increased [14, 15]. Despite the large number of studies on cycling from the perspective of ATS [3, 4, 15], and of sports performance [16], the scientific literature on the study of cycling from other viewpoints is rather scarce [17]. Psychological variables have been less frequently studied in the cycling literature [9, 18]. So far, some psychological benefits of cycling have been identified [6], such as the positive effect on mental well-being [15, 19], the improvementof life satisfaction levels [18], the creation of positive emotions [20], the maintenance of low-stress levels [6; 21], and even the motivation towards learning cycling skills which is considered as a facilitating factor of learning which must be considered in different intervention programs [22; 23]; these are positive and general effects that enable students to perform better in school [19]. However, no studies have been found that address the benefits of cycling on other variables such as emotional intelligence (EI) and motivational climate (MC), factors of great importance to ensure success in learning [24], and for the holistic development of children [25]. Therefore, the improvement of EI and its relationship with MC are lines of research that require further exploration, so the present study focuses on these issues due to their significance. Regarding EI, although there is a solid scientific basis around its concept, this definition has been subject of controversy [26], being considered by some authors as a skill, by others as a trait, and by a third group of authors that defines it as a combination of both [27]; different models that support EI have emerged, among which is the skills model of [PERSON] and [PERSON] [28] which defines EI as a system of mental skills to perceive, understand, and regulate the emotions necessary to solve problems [29]. Within this model, the use of the self-report \"Trait Meta-Mood Scale\" (TMMS) developed by [PERSON] et al. [30] aimed to assess the skills that allow individuals to be aware of their own emotions to regulate them [31] stands out. The TMMS integrates different skills: emotional perception, related to the identification of one's own and other's emotions; emotional facilitation of thought, understood as the ability to evaluate feelings when thinking or solving certain problems; emotional understanding, conceived as the ability to differentiate emotional signals; and emotional regulation, understood as the ability to regulate one's own and others' emotions, controlling negative emotions and enhancing positive ones [32].