Following the thread of previous posts, our purpose here, for Those Of a Certain Age (TOCAs) is to build up one’s vitality as can be measured by VO2 Max (and other metrics) so that during our final decade of life, perhaps our Centenarian Decade, we are able to move our carcass and do stuff (such as we will then have it to move and do).
Previous posts negated running / jogging as a means of achieving such goal because for most of us TOCAs it carries substantial risk injury of knee, hip, and who knows what else. And the consequences of losing lower body mobility are massive. Again I reference Peter Attia MD for data and terror on the massively adverse effects of becoming idled for any period of time, even just weeks. And confined to bed rest for a week could be the beginning of a one way trip to rapid, irreversible decline to a non-ambulatory end-of-life period. So avoiding injury is a primary goal. We should also beware of the risk of sudden death as we can easily be lured into too much fitness work too soon, and without a good understanding of the condition of our heart (for instance).
On the subject of heart health, a stress test with a cardiologist is a very good idea. Stress tests are pretty simple and routine, covered by insurance with a doctor’s diagnosis, something one can justify doing every two or three years. That plus the usual EKGs and ultrasound are pretty simple to get done, and they could give an early warning indicator of something serious that should curtail exercising outside of a doctor’s supervison.
In the previous post, I conveyed the judgment of exercise and medical authorities that rucking can be an excellent cardio-building practice. There is some risk with rucking as the load on the legs and knees is greater than just standing and slightly more than just normal walking. Plus there is some risk of back injury and falls.
Here in this post I will extol the virtues of cycling in multiple forms based on my own experience: about 40,000 miles of pedal biking in about the past dozen years, including pedaling Route 66 from Chicago’s Buckingham Fountain to just shy of the Eastern border of New Mexico. And I have done those miles primarily on the below seven vehicles:
- Diamond Frame Bike, the traditional design, Giant (aluminum)
- Tandem Recumbent, Expedition by Catrike
- Tandem Recumbent, 559 (also a Catrike), in two configurations, (A) as original, and (B) with an aftermarket e-assist upgrade
- Tandem Recumbent, Dumont (yet a third Catrike)
- Trail e-Bike, Aventon Aventure 2
- British folding bike, Brompton
- Folding Tandem, Bike Friday
- Stationary Bike, Schwinn Airdyne
Most of my miles have been on bikes #2 – 5 and these are the ones I’ve retained, along with the stationary bike. And, yes, adding up the costs gets you into five figures, quite easily. (And, true confessions, there were additionally three motorcycles, or as I prefer the term “motorbikes:” Suzuki VSTROM 650, Triumph Explorer 1200 XRT, and, presently, BMW 850 GS…which in aggregate added another 40,000 miles of travel in the last dozen years–but that’s a different post).
Between the pedaling and motor bikes I have managed to go around the earth (in miles) about three times. I’ve detailed some of these adventures on another website.
Virtues of Biking
The primary, twin virtues of biking is gentle load demands on one’s legs and knees while at being able to go long, scenic distances, including in social groups, experiencing wind therapy. There is a certain risk of falls, which can be serious. Business writer Steven Covey, author of Seven Habits book, died from a biking accident; he was 79 and wearing a bike helmet. And, even ‘just’ injuries for us TOCAs are serious because it can create massive setbacks in fitness. There is also the risk of collisions with cars, trucks, motorcycles, falling crates off of trucks, and crazy people throwing stuff.
Such risks can be compensated by developing cycling skills, and street smarts. (Covey, for example, was reported as falling in a turn on a very steep downhill road). In all my pedaling miles and years, I have not had a single collision, or assault, and only one fall (ironically on a trike-bike). (Likewise with my motorbiking adventures…no adverse events, though I have fallen five or six times, but at low speeds, and always wearing full gear).
There are many organized group bike rides including multi-day, even multi-week trips. They vary widely in cost depending on accommodations and support. Some of these rides are restricted to TOCAs only (sometimes with 55 or 60 year old thresholds) and others for women only.
One example from personal experience that typifies the kind of organized rides available is the “Coast to Coast” Florida ride. It is presently 210 miles, starting at downtown St Petersburg FL and ending at Titusville FL near Cape Kennedy. The ride is arranged as three nights in hotels, and four riding days, making for ca 50 mile biking days. The organizers carry all one’s gear (suitcases and such) to each night’s hotel, and provides coach bus service at the destination to bring the riders and their bikes back to the starting point four days prior. All the hotels are arranged. You can bring your bikes into your room. There are snacks along the way, a sag wagon, and organizers riding with you in case of minor repairs. Do not think this is crumpets and Beaujolais; at the rest stops, one gets to squirt out peanut butter onto white bread and grab some cookies and grapes. The cost varies from $1K to $1.2K depending on double or single occupancy. They have over 55 only rides, and women only rides. You get to meet friendly fellow riders who have come from multiple other states and in some cases have done dozens of such rides in many different places, including internationally. For the TOCA crowd, there’s a no judgment vibe: one leaves whenever after the morning briefing and one follows the route laid out by paper or by e-file, rolling along at one’s own pace. 50 miles between 8:30 a.m. and dinner is not a difficult pace or distance.
Bike #1: Diamond Bike
The bicycle we typically think of is known as a diamond frame bike. Some are built as a modified diamond so the front cross bar is lowered; these used to be call “girls bikes,” but not anymore. Newer models are available with essentially no cross bar, known as a “step through which makes mounting and de-mounting easier and safer.
These vary by “cockpit” length–the distance between the seat and handlebars–and handlebar viz seat positioning, either bent forward or upright riding. For TOCAs, the upright position is likely the best option as it unweights (mostly) the arms and wrists, putting more of the body weight on the part that is on the “saddle” (more on this below). For longer rides, and certainly for trips, a longer cockpit and accordingly larger wheelbase is preferred, at the trade-off of nimbleness.
Bike weight is an important variable, lighter being better (and thus more costly). On the other hand for trips one needs a large enough gross weight capacity to carry body and gear, especially lots of water.
There are now tubeless tire options becoming available that avoids (in theory) the dreaded flats risk. Alternatively, one can injected goo of various blends that can self-heal many punctures. Another protection route is to use heavier weight tubes and tires, and replace them well before approaching end of life.
As to safety, being as visible as possible is the best strategy. I’ve put lights everywhere, two or three red ones facing aft, all blinking out of sequence, and multiple white ones in the front, one or two steady “on” and one or two blinking wildly. And I have lights on my helmet, white in front, blinking red in the back. And I have used a flag mounted on the rear frame, including little lights hanging on it. My theory has been to be lit so as I’m impossible to be undetected but not so much that I become an attractor for mischief.
An easy-aspiration ride is low teens mph (12 – 13) for an hour. It can be therapy…something about the spinning wheel and the wind. Biking faster–mid to upper teens–and higher leads to a substantially greater workout. As discussed in prior posts, the recommended training level of effort is Zone 2, which is breathing such that you can talk but don’t really want to. After developing a baseline of fitness, one should be able to sustain Zone 2 for hours, even all day.
The cost of such bike can be a few hundred dollars to you-don’t-want-to-know (as in multiple thousands).
BIke #6: Brompton Folding Bike
This bike has a cult-like following. There are ‘races’ wherein the riders are in tuxedos, some full tuxes with tails and even top hats. YouTube will open that window.
The Brompton has small tires, 20 inch. It is the slickest folding bike that I could find. Can be easily collapsed, put into a sturdy canvas bag, and checked as luggage on a flight, or stashed in a trunk or in a boat.
However, it is not a great pedaling bike, having sacrificed ride ability for fold ability.
Bike #7: Bike Friday, Tandem, Folding Bike
Tandem bikes can be a lot of fun for couples who are simpatico as to speed, distance, weather, frequency. The rider in front, the captain, steers and coordinates the pedaling effort with the rider in back, the stoker, just the aids the pedaling effort. The stoker holds onto a fixed handlebar and can freely looking around, and give back seat driving advice.
Folding bikes can be good solutions for airline travel as they usually have soft or hard cases available for a custom fit. They are heavier to accommodate the folding feature. And they give up certain geometrical optimizations so as to be folded. The Bike Friday tandem can fit into two very large hard shell suitcases that enable airline travel.
One can get tandems that don’t fold, and folders that are not tandem. I’d advise a serious test ride of any tandem or folder before purchasing as it is easy to be disappointed by them (as I was, and sold mine). The Bike Friday also has its own cult following.
Bikes #2 – #4: Tadpole Trike Bikes (all by Catrike)
These bike geometries are wonderfully comfortable. It is close to being a Lazy-Boy recliner with pedals. I did all my Route 66 training rides and the trip itself on two different Cartrikes (#2 and #3(A)/(B)).
The great comfort has some associated disadvantages: they are more expensive bikes, they’re heavier, they are hard to transport, awkward to get into one’s hotel room, challenging to pedal up hills, and are less visible to road traffic (because one is low to the ground).
There are various fixes to such disadvantages. They have 30 gears, so one can pedal very steep hills at very slow speeds without danger of falling over. There are e-bike add ons available. Lights can be put in many different places and there is an aftermarket huge flag that creates high visibility. There are special hitch racks that can carry a Catrike, and there are models that are foldable (with difficulty).
There are two disadvantages that cannot be fixed. Getting up out of a tadpole trike requires leg and arm strength; it’s not crazy hard, but one should test this. The other disadvantage is that you absolutely must have clip on shoes. Your feet are inches above the ground and just ahead of a low cross-bar. If you feet became disengaged from the pedals for any reason and just touched the payment zooming by below you, your leg…well…you just don’t want to think about it. However, getting the right shoes and clip-ons properly adjusted, will prevent this horror. Further as you get used to pedaling, you point your toe forward a little such that your foot is not strictly vertical hanging onto the pedal and its clip-on. Again, I’ve gone around the world in miles–more than 24,000–on Catrikes with never a foot slip. But one needs to pay attention before launching out.
Can you fall in a Catrike? Not easily, but yes you can, because I did. If you catch one of your front wheels on some kind of an incline, like a curb, at speed, you can be tilted such that your upper body ‘pulls’ you over. The Catrike has three tracks: left, middle, and right. You need to pay attention to where the left and right wheel / tracks are headed. And that leads to another negative feature: on a conventional bike there is one track, compared to three tracks on a trike. Obstacles and rough spots can be much more easily avoided on a conventional bike.
The three Catrikes I’ve had are: Expedition, 559, and the Dumont. And the 559 I upgraded to an e-bike configuration using a BionX system. The e-559 was particularly wonderful for the Route 66 ride from Tulsa OK to NM because there was a never ending down and up required to cross the many north to south rivers and creeks that slice across OK and TX. Without the e-bike feature, the ride required zooming down to the river / creek bridge, seemingly approaching the speed of sound, navigating a sometimes skinny bridge, and then pedaling like a maniac to get up the other side before one runs out of the acquired kinetic energy. With the e-bike add on, which had regenerative braking, I could do the downhill with negative-e maintaining any desired safe speed, and thus recharging the battery a little, and then at the bottom switch to positive-e and thrust my way up the other side assisted by my pedaling (always pedaling).
For flatland gentle hill living the e-bike addition was not helpful and, adversely, it add a substantial amount of weight, nearly 50 pounds. Hence, I added the Dumont to my 559 e-bike ‘fleet.’ The Dumont is better day to day because of its light weight, and it has some built-in suspension to ease the ride.
Bike #5: e-Bike
One of the distinctives of the Catrike is its comfortable seating position. However, it requires also a distinctive pedaling push that puts a greater emphasis on one’s gluteus maximus muscles. For some folks, this never feels right. For others, it works until it doesn’t work because one’s ‘glutes’ begin to object. Whether its age or injury, if your glutes are not happy you are not going to enjoy long rides.
And that leads to Bike #5, my most recent addition. This is an e-Bike, specifically an Aventon Aventure-2. It has full size 26 inch wheels with 4 inch trail tires. This bike is a beast, hence its given name “The Sled.” (One must, absolutely must, name each vehicle: for my #2-5 they are The Silver Streak, The Orange Flash, The Black Knight, and The Sled).
The Sled can carry 400 pounds (or more), and weighs about 80 pounds without any gear, easily 110 pounds with just some gear and a backup battery.
What works well with this bike is pedaling at the lowest level of e-assist (of the four levels available). At a reasonable pedaling speed in its top gear produces a 15 mph, Zone 2 ride, that can extend for 50 miles on a single battery. For long trips I carry a spare battery. It has 8 gears so with the lowest level of assist and the 8 gears it can be used for a wide variety of conditions. It does not have regenerative braking, so all bike potential and kinetic energy is lost to braking.
Aventon claims a range of 46 miles, depending on everything (wind, hills, weight, level of assist, etc.). I’ve achieved 50 miles over flat terrain with little wind, but in a heavy configuration, always pedaling. It can be pedaled without e-assist, but because of its weight and fat tires is is hard to go double digits mph, even pedaling hard.
A big factor in travel situations is seat comfort. When picking up my Aventon bike, I was shown a spectrum of seat choices on a wall from one at the far left looking like a 2 by 4 on edge to the right-most one known which was called “the sofa.” I chose the later and have never regretted it. Purists can choose a more middle of the spectrum option as better suited to power biking. Also, e-bikes come in many design configurations. Some look like traditional road bikes, with wheel sizes larger than 26 inches, with smaller diameter, high-pressure tires for much less rolling resistance. The Aventon Aventure 2 bike’s tire pressure is ca 20 psi, compared to a serious road bike which can be 100+ psi. The fatter tire at lower pressure makes for a smoother ride, is better for unpaved paths, and is easier to balance at slow speeds.
Bike #8: Stationary Bike, the Schwinn Airdyne
I’ve added a special category for stationary bikes such as might be available at a health club, or home purchase. My experience is with a highly-recommended model known as the Schwinn Airdyne. It allows the simultaneous exercising of both arms and legs.
Stationary bikes have the obvious virtue that they are weather-independent, so can be used year around. But an even greater virtue is that they are especially useful for accelerating gains in VO2 Max levels by HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training.
The “high” of HIIT is operating at what’s known as Zone 5. Zone 5 is an intense, very high heart rate, short-term all out effort. Doing a HIIT exercise, such Zone 5 is followed by easy pedaling, even easier than Zone 2, then reverting to Zone 5 and back down again and again for periods of 10 to 20 minutes. There are many versions of HIIT. A particularly noted one is the Bhatia HIIT. This form of HIIT is one of many available in the “biking” app of the iOS eco-system. The effect of doing one 20 minute Bhatia is pretty amazing.
The stationary bike enables HIIT far better than any road bike unless one is out of the city on some long stretches of pedaling room. But if you’re riding with others, you will annoy them by your zooming by at Zone 5 and then crawling along at Zone 1.
Biking Final Thought: Riding with Kids and Grandkids
One of the great joys of biking can be riding with one’s family, from around the neighborhood to long trips.
One my Route 66 ride I was privileged to do a 5-day segment with my youngest daughter, each of us on Catrikes on a wonderful rails-to-trails segment across Missouri known as the KATY Trail. That segment, as well as the entire Route 66 ride can be seen at above linked site (www.Route66Adventure.net). The KATY Trail is highly recommended as it follows the track of steam-powered trains which were limited to gentle grades. Also that Trail follows in large part the Lewis and Clark expedition on the Missouri River; so reading Steven Ambrose’s wonderful book, Undaunted Courage, is recommended before taking that ride. The trail has many rest stops with signage of what Lewis and Clark were doing at such sites according to their travel log.
In one’s final decade, even if it turns out to be the Centenarian Decade, one can have riding experiences with multi-generations of family, even if it’s a 5-10 mile neighborhood loop. There are so many rails to trails and other park-supported riding areas that numerous opportunities await for fun, and Zone 2 fitness.