Press Conference on "Just Start Riding!"

Super Sized Cycles held a press conference yesterday afternoon. It was gorgeous outside, and we were right next to the bike path in downtown Burlington, VT. Here's the content:



Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. My name is Joan Denizot, and I’m the founder of Super Sized Cycles, the first and only store to offer bikes for big riders. This summer we are proud to sponsor the first annual “Just Start Riding!” bike challenge.

The “Just Start Riding!” bike challenge is the bike riding challenge for people who don’t do bike riding challenges. Taking advantage of May being National Bike Month, Super Sized Cycles wanted to create an event where those who don’t normally participant in organized fitness activities would feel welcome.

The objectives of the program are to increase fitness levels and self esteem, to “go green”, and to have fun! Riders set their own goals. While we suggest working up to cycling 10 miles per week, for some people that may be too much. For others it may be too little. Whatever the individual wants to set as his or her mileage goal is what it becomes.


We encourage people to set a weight loss goal, too. It doesn’t need to be huge—in fact, it shouldn’t be huge. This is about living life to the fullest, and who among us doesn’t find good food a part of that full life? Eating right is important, and so is allowing ourselves to sample all the pleasures of the season—a ride to a strawberry patch where we can feast on fresh berries, an afternoon picnic at the lakefront, maybe even an occasional ride to Ben and Jerry’s. It’s all good, and when you get there on your own power, you can allow yourself to indulge without too much guilt.

The goal of the “Just Start Riding!” campaign is to create a safe, encouraging environment for everyone to start exercising. We’d love to hook up people who are interested in meeting other riders, but it can also be done completely individually. The support comes from blogging, emails, and encouragement from Super Sized Cycles and other participants. There will even be prizes for those who meet their goals.

What difference, you may ask, will a few people riding short distances, make?

I speak of the Just Start Riding! Campaign as a summer program, but it is actually 6 months long. It starts now, in May, national bike month. It ends in October. We stretched it out as long as we thought Vermonters might actually ride! Six months—of fun, of connecting with people, of remembering the joy of exercising!

In six months many people who start biking can easily lose 10 pounds. That’s reasonable, about 1 ½ pounds per month. If we have only 500 riders, who each lose 10 pounds, that’s 2 ½ tons—just gone!

I daresay we can make a very moderate guess that our riders will total about 50 miles over the course of the program. Put those miles end-to-end, and we’ve cycled the circumference of the earth!

If those same riders are cycling instead of driving, that means that they’re conserving 1000 gallons of gasoline. This means eliminating 22,000 pounds of carbon dioxide! Not to mention saving money on gas.

Why the push to get people of all sizes biking? Did you realize that physical inactivity is the cause of one third of all deaths due to:
coronary heart disease,
colon cancer
and diabetes?


That’s a lot of premature deaths from just not moving. Obviously, physical inactivity has a strong link to being overweight and obese also.

I spent the weekend as an exhibitor at the Going Green Expo held at the University of Vermont here in Burlington. I had several bikes for people to test ride and was available to answer questions and encourage people to ride. My observation is that most big people attending the event didn’t even glance at my booth.

There could be many reasons for this, but one that I’m sure is a factor is that they are conditioned to “know” that they’re too fat to ride. While this is NOT TRUE, I know that I believed it for a long time. The fact is that the exercise options that many people take for granted are not easily available for big people. Cycling is a perfect example.

Bigger people just need bikes that are built better. They need
steel frames
comfortable saddles
wide tires with strong rims and spokes
metal pedals.

Some bicycles can be adapted to be made strong enough for a big person to ride. For those looking to purchase a new bike, Our Zize Bikes are built to hold up to 550 pounds.

I searched for a long time for a politically correct way to say fat. Every word I came up with was charged with negativity. My response was to invent a new word. I’d like to introduce you to Zize: Size with Attitude!


Zize is about people of size who just get on with their lives. If they’re happy being big, that’s great! If they want to lose weight, that’s great! It’s about the attitude of being positive and about that proverbial glass being half full. “Just Start Riding!” is an invitation to all people—of size, of zize, or otherwise, to decide to actively play.

Because the bikes built by Super Sized Cycles are so amazing and awe-inspiring, Zize Bikes seemed like the logical name to give them. They represent all that is positive, powerful, and attitudinal!



I’d like to end with some quotes from 2 emails I received just this morning. Not planned nor planted, here’s what they say:


“Greetings to you my name is jason and i am 6ft 3incehs and 500 lbs.my knee is in bad shape and doc says walking is out of the question and i need a bike…”


Bob says, “Hello! I cannot articulate how excited I am to have found a vendor that sells bikes for "oversized" people. I am in my mid 40's and have not rode a bike for at least 25 years because of my size. I am pleasantly surprised at your web site.”


Helping people find a way to reconnect with cycling is what Super Sized Cycles is all about.





How can you become involved?

1. Sign up at SuperSizedCycles.com/JustStartRiding, and encourage your friends and family to do the same.


2. Connect with your zize friends and invite them to ride with you.


3. Ask you favorite businesses to contact us to participate in providing incentives for riders.


4. And especially, strap on your helmet, hop on your bike, and Just Start Riding!

Going Green Expo this weekend

Wow! So much for thinking I'll blog every day. I can barely seem to get to it once/week. Thank you for your patience with me as I integrate this new way of communicating with you all.

This weekend is the Going Green Expo in Burlington, VT, half an hour from my home. Super Sized Cycles will be there, outside on the track, so people can try our bikes. Like most things, it's a lot more work than one bargains for, and I've been running around all week getting ready for it.

Today is set-up day, and I'll be meeting my husband (God bless him, he's such a supportive volunteer for my business) and my bike Guru, who is coming in spite of that fact that it's his birthday. (Happy Birthday, Tim--we'll have cake and coffee while we're working. You didn't think I'd pass up an opportunity for cake, did you??!) Hopefully it won't take us too long to set up, because the list of other things does not seem to be getting any shorter. Tomorrow my daughter will be joining the team. It's supposed to be a great weekend, weather-wise, so I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun.

There's lots going on at Super Sized Cycles. Check out our Just Start Riding! summer campaign for biking. I'll tell you more about that soon. And our Zize Bikes production is moving along, although never as fast as I'd like.

I'm off to finish packing supplies for the Expo. I'll be sure to get a ride in today--join me?

hopes

One of the things that really keeps me going is people's responses to Super Sized Cycles. Usually there is a slightly startled look, and then the big smile when they catch on. "Of course," they say, "That's an awesome idea!" The idea of big people riding bikes certainly shouldn't be original, but it takes a while to make it mainstream. Actually, I've been working on this company for over 2 years, and I still feel like it's a mini micro-business. We're getting there, though, and the feedback I get from my customers and potential customers keeps me going.

Yes, Super Sized Cycles is going through some growing pains and there is definite room for improvement. With our commitment to quality, excellent customer service and authenticity, we find that most of our customers are willing to accept the (proverbial) bumps in the road. I want to share a couple of thoughts from recent notes with customers:

• I ran across your add in the journal for the American Association of Diabetes Educators. As a diabetes educator, I am always on the look out for information to share with my patients to help find ways they can safely exercise. Your website is wonderful. I will pass this info on…Thank you for all you are doing!

• Hello Joan! I am so thrilled to find this site through OAC (Obesity Action Coalition). What an incredible link! I have wished for many years that I could ride a bike again and have tried to find somewhere in Canada.

God Bless You for having the drive and moxy to do something monumental like this for yourself and ultimately - others. What a great story!

In future blogs I’ll share more stories, and I invite you to tell your story, too. We’re all in this together, and the way out is through!

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!