Recession? Buy a bike!

Today my inbox was filled with stuff about the recession we're heading into. Gas prices heading up every day. A few months ago we were talking about the inevitability of gas hitting $4.00/gallon this summer, now it looks like it'll be $5.00. And the big panic about a food shortage. I have to wonder how this happens--I mean, did farmers all of a sudden stop producing food? Walmart and Costco limiting purchases of rice???

Fascinating, you say, but, really, Joan, this is not why we're reading you. You're talking to us about weightier issues, like getting on to bikes. Right. Well, there is a connection. I don't know about you, but when I go to fill up my car and it costs me over $50 and I see the people in an SUV next to me paying $90, I start getting worried. We really can't keep on like this. We need to find alternative means of transportation. Which, as you now see, brings me back to bikes.

Fat people are have a double problem here, because
1) There are very few bikes that are strong enough for us
2) It's harder for us to ride a bike
We can sit around and moan about this, or we can decide to be proactive. Get a bike at www.SuperSizedCycles.com. Ride it! It's hard in the beginning, but it gets easier.

If you ride just 10 miles a week that you would have otherwise driven, over the course of a month you've ridden 40 miles, it will probably save you about $10 in gas alone. And this doesn't even mention that you're doing something great for your body and spirit.

Believe me, once you start riding, you won't want to stop. Well, if you're like me, you will still be lazy about getting on your bike, but once on it you won't want the ride to end. It's just too much fun!

If you're worried about the hills, get an electric assist bike (my dirty little secret that I wrote about on 4/23/08). They take the fear out of hills. Really, the big trick is to just find a bike that you can ride comfortably and safely. For many people that option didn't exist until a couple of years ago, but now there's Super Sized Cycles, so you can buy bike. You can start riding. You can take back control over your life!

Perfect Weather, Perfect rides

I am so happy to have my bikes out of storage and to be able to ride the roads and trails again. The weather for the past 2 weeks has been absolutely ideal--in the 70s during the day, and most nights not even dropping to freezing. (For those of you who don't live in the north country, that may not seem that thrilling, but for Vermont it is absolutely awesome!)

I live in a rural area where dirt roads are the norm. My street is one long dirt road filled with pot holes and hills.

There are bike paths near by, but I have to drive to them, so I try to arrange rides when I have to go into town on other business. I drive an 8 year old van that, in the spring, summer, and fall, always has one or two bikes in the back. I keep my helmet and gloves in the car, too, because I don't want to be caught without. I digress--back to riding near home.

To get at least a little exercise every day, which I try to do and which I am usually loathe to initiate, even when it's doing something I love, I have started riding my electric assist bike on my road.

I have to tell you, as much as I love my traditional bikes, electric assists are a godsend for a big person like me who lives in the hills of a place like Vermont. here's what's amazing--I can ride up hills on my bike! If it's a steep one I will huff and puff a bit, but I can do it. I'm just not in good enough shape to ride a traditional bike up hills--I usually collapse about half way up. Understand that I firmly believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with walking your bike up a hill, it's just that I don't like to do it. I love the speed and weight-relief of a bike, and I'd much rather ride it than walk it, thank you very much.

My electric assist feels like a dirty little secret to me. At www.SuperSizedCyles.com I sell traditional bikes as well as electric assists, and I love them all. But really, for a person of size, the electric assist is just so much easier. It's a little bit of insurance in the big, bad world of hills!

Speaking of which, I"m off for a ride......

Why Weight to Bike?

The reason I’m writing this blog is to encourage people who are heavy, big, fat, plus size—whatever!--who want to ride a bike. Bike riding is a great way to get healthy, help the environment, lose weight and have a lot of fun. Let’s use this space as a springboard for a positive, uplifting environment where we can help each other move beyond being “too much” into being happy, healthy, and fit exactly as we are.

My story is about being fat and wanting to ride a bike. A few years ago I thought that the solution to that desire would be to simply buy a bike and start pedaling. HA! As if!

What I discovered is that big people are discriminated against in bicycling, like in most things. (We won’t get started on this discrimination thing yet—I’ll save it for another day!)

The focus on today’s bikes is indeed on weight, but not in a way that would help fat people. The goal of bike builders seems to be getting the bikes as light as possible. Like we’re all out to compete in the Tour de France? Actually, it was kind of funny, in a perverse way. When I was initially looking for a bike for me, I searched endlessly on bicycle sites for “weight limits” and other such terms. There were no answers. Weight brought up titanium frames and .07 ounce doodads, not how much the vehicle could safely hold. Geez…….

This lack of bikes made me realize that I am certainly not the only big person who wants to ride a bike. Biking is so fun, so freeing, and it’s non-weight bearing. Sooooooooo much easier than walking, and a heck of a lot faster, too. I kept on with my research, had my instinctive belief confirmed (yes, it is possible to make a bike strong enough for a really heavy person), found a frame builder, and the rest, as they say, is history. www.SuperSizedCycles.com was born!