Greetings everyone,
This is my very first post on this cycling blog. And I feel like it’s only fair to explain just how I got into cycling. It is a bit of a long story. But hopefully it’ll serve as an inspiration to anyone considering taking up this wonderful hobby.
The Health Problems
In 2021, I began seeing my new doctor. It was two days before Christmas and he called me into his office to discuss my blood test results. This was when he informed me that I had high blood pressure, type two diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. While there are medications out there that can control both hypertension and diabetes, there are none that are approved for the treatment of NAFLD. He told me I needed to avoid alcohol, lose weight, eat healthfully, and exercise.
This was a wake up call. But I was not totally prepared to handle this yet. And honestly, the start of the Omicron wave of Covid-19 had other ideas at the time. It was because of this news that I got serious about avoiding Covid-19. It seemed to me that with my health being poorer than I had previously known, it was wise to avoid Covid-19 entirely.
Fast forward about a year, and I got into the habit of checking my blood pressure and blood glucose levels at home regularly. Despite some efforts that I had made into eating better and exercising more, my numbers were very concerning. I grew concerned that I was going to wind up with heart disease or a stroke. And I wasn’t even forty years old yet. The time had finally come to see the doctor again. This time, after rerunning the tests and confirming his earlier diagnoses, I was put onto medications to treat those problems.
The switch to cycling
I was walking more. But I wasn’t particularly enjoying it. I had to walk everywhere anyway since I didn’t own a car. Buses are a bit of a drag to take where I live. And they’re typically only reliable in the winter when road construction has finished. I decided I would order an e-bike. I ordered one online through a reputable retailer, from what I thought was a reputable manufacturer. At the same time, I also visited a local bicycle shop and picked up a regular pedal bike. I was unaware at the time that the same shop also sold e-bikes, or I would have sourced mine locally. The lesson I learned here was to always check this sort of thing out before leaping into a purchase.
For a time, I was pretty happy with the e-bike. However, I was only brave enough to go outside and use it at night when traffic was light. Additionally, it was cold. When I normally got outside for a ride, it would be -14 degrees Celsius. This was not a fun time for me, and I wasn’t really pedaling so much as relying exclusively on the throttle. As such, I wasn’t getting the kind of health benefits out of it that I could have been. And since I lacked the fortitude to run my day to day errands with it, I was still taking the bus to do things like fetch groceries.
As 2024 progressed however, I began to get a bit bolder and started using the e-bike to run more errands, particularly as the summer months rolled around. I realized that I’d have to learn to do this, as my supervisor informed me that they wanted all managers to be working in office part time that autumn. It was sink or swim time. Since I had previously worked in office, I moved further west from where the office was located, and the office was moved further east. What used to be a 20 minute walk would take several hours now one way, or a bus ride that takes an hour in the winter, and even longer in the summer.
Thus, biking became the answer, and I happily used that motorized bike to zip to and from work. This even led me to be bold enough to plan a trip to another province on the bike. I was able to take a ferry boat across the Bay of Fundy and visit a small village in Nova Scotia for a few days. I was able to travel 100 kilometers from home, but only covered about 25 of those kilometers by bicycle. And it was far cheaper than taking the same trip by car.
Cycling headwinds
Not long after this though, the e-bike started having numerous issues. The rear rack snapped, the rear tire flattened, and my attempts to repair the tire (which failed) somehow tangled up the chain. I would need a chain breaker to fix the chain, and a new tube to repair the tire. But my attempts at replacing the rear rack were futile. I reached out to the manufacturer multiple times. I reached out to the retailer who sold me the bicycle, and he did the same thing.
When I would reach out, they told me I’d have to reach out to the person who sold it to me. When he reached out, they would tell him the part was not covered under warranty, even though their warranty said otherwise. After a few months of fighting this out with the company, I gave up. But this is another reason to shop local for your e-bike. I learned that the person who sold me the e-bike recently ended his partnership with the company, presumably because they were so awful to deal with. If you shop local, you support your local business community AND have the added benefit that they will deal with reputable manufacturers.
With the e-bike beyond my ability to fix, and no way to lug it to a mechanic, I dusted off the pedal bike that I had bought earlier that year. The first time I rode it to work, I was really sore. I felt sore and stiff just seated at my desk after that ride, 9 kilometers one way over the numerous hills this city has. I was certainly in no shape to bike up any hills. I still had not been exercising properly up to that point.
On the return trip that cold November evening, I had to walk up two back to back steep hills. One was a 13% grade, and that was almost immediately followed by a 16% grade. The total distance walked was only about a few hundred meters, but to someone out of shape, sick, and overweight, that was a lot. I can still recall my head pounding after I got to the top of the second hill, too out of breath to even keep walking the bike. This coupled with the blurry vision made me worried I was having a stroke. Luckily, after a few minutes of recovery time, I was starting to feel better and able to get home.
The following day, I was too sore to do much beyond get out of bed. It’s a good thing I was off that day. But then I had two consecutive shifts at work. I wasn’t sure what to do. Luckily, a cycling friend of mine told me that I just needed to take it easy. This was the single best piece of cycling advice I had ever gotten. To me, biking was all about being faster. And while biking is usually faster, there’s no need to try to break the land speed record, unless you want to of course. For me just trying to get to work, this was hardly necessary.
I followed his advice and paced myself on the following trip to work and back. And while I was still challenged, I didn’t at any point feel like I was going to have a stroke. When I woke up the following day, I knew I could again bike to work and back for the 18 kilometer round trip. This was one of the big turning points in my life.
Improved health
Since that evening approximately 9 months ago now, I’ve lost approximately 35 pounds. I’ve also gone from not being able to bike up any hills, to only having to push the bike up one hill on the ride home. By taking a 10 kilometer route, I optimized away the two back to back steep hills. The extra kilometer means extra exercise, and being on the bike almost the whole time means I’m continuing to build endurance and strength for that particular activity.
I also ride my bike for all errands now that I can. I’ve bought a trailer that I can use to haul groceries home in. This is way easier than carrying the groceries to the bus stop, and then from the bus stop back home. It’s also way more convenient, as I no longer wait almost an hour for the next bus to arrive. And this is driving me towards some of the health goals that I’ve established with the help of my doctor.
Since starting cycling and the medications to treat my various health problems, my blood pressure is lower, my cholesterol is very low, and my blood glucose is the best it’s been in at least five years. And I have more energy now than I have ever had in my adult life. There are some days where I actually feel like I have too much energy. And if I have an off day where I feel like I need more energy, a bike ride is an excellent way to address that.
I hope that if you’re on the fence about whether or not to take up cycling, that this post will inspire you to give it a try. Stay tuned for my next post where I will go through recommendations for beginner cyclists who want to explore this fantastic hobby and mode of transportation further.