This blog has been created to log my kickbike journey. I've pushed a dogscooter for a few years as a means to get around suburban Brisbane.
I don't drive and have always relied on public transport, shank's pony and bikes or scooters to get around.
I have also suffered from Fibromyalgia for over 20 years and this has greatly restricted my physical activities while making it urgent that I find ways to be physically active every day.
Due to the associated restraints imposed on my mobility by increasing stiffness and a reduction in my range of movement, riding a bicycle was often very difficult especially the mounting and peddling part of the exercise. (Rather big parts of bicycling are they not?)
So I gravitated to the ease of step on and step off scootering.
After a a terrible bout of ill health during all of 2006 I've been trying to claw myself back to a level of "fitness". As I worked harder at this task and considered my options I began to elevate scootering in my estimation as an activity that could give me the sort of workout and range of movement challenges that could foster a qualitatively faster growth in my physical well being.
Kickbikes are usually promoted as fast and challenging bikes that can push you to the max.
Well, I'm not so much interested in that.
My project is to explore the Kickbike as a rehabilitation machine in the same way you'd employ a gym regime tailored for someone with a physical handicap-- in my case, Fibromyalgia/arthritis.
I'm also very interested in the Kickbike as a commuting tool as I often scoot to and from the CBD portaging my present scooter on the train.
What has been written about scooters -- even the ones with small wheels -- in regard to "trip" utility is very true, I think: over short distances any scooter is probably a better way to get hither and yon rather than the mounting and peddling involved with riding a bicycle, say, to school or to the shops.
The advantage with the kickbike, compared to scooters with smaller wheels, is that you can also log the distances if you have a mind to travel that far.
It is easier to push...and it has other attributes I hope to discover as I log my experiences here on this blog.
Kettlebells are ringing..
As part of my rehab program I graduated to gym work by taking on a personal trainer and I now do weekly sessionS built primarily around a boxing gym approach. It was through that training that I really got interested in rope skipping -- a boxer's workout standard -- and kettlebells.
I luv them bells. Like the kickbike kettlebells are about working your body in an all in general motion demanding engagement of the whole body in executing the swing and lift. The traditional gym approach of repetitively working just one group of muscles is dead boring and has nothing to do with what I'm after. So at hom I like to work with the bells. That and a jump rope is all I need. I also own a pair of boxing gloves and work out on the punching bag I have haNging from my veranda roof
Handline Fishing
For relaxation I took up fishing using a handline and since that's also 'exercise' (and casting a handline with the right arm as I fly fisherman may cast a fly ) really strains the arm time after time, because thats' the way I like to fish: wading and casting.
...and gardening
And since it's also physical, I grow vegetables . So I share my gardening activities here also.
I guess this is a blog about aspiring to an active lifestyle even if so often I'm not active at all.
Dave Riley
