Whether you're male or female, older or younger, medical research increasingly shows that light daily exercise is the single most important way to improve your health. Your old heavy weekend exercise just can't compare. So get some footbike in your daily life - chic commuting, exercise, lose weight, save money, fit with other transport modes.
Commute all-year - just add a long cape and a front-basket. Allowed on sidewalks, unlike bicycles. Huge distances can be covered very easily. Gives tremendous all-day energy. Easily done in work-attire. Avoid the problems of jogging (distance limitations, knee/hip-joint/back stress, sweating) and the problems of bicycling (scrotal and back stress, blood-flow reduction, wind-chill, and traffic). Footbiking's healthy, balanced, convivial. Builds long thin elegant muscle, firms the whole body, provides heart, circulation, digestive/dietary, respiratory, and emotional exercise at any level of adrenalin that user wishes. Any age. Great for attitude. Great for lifestyle. And what a look !
My intro:I just joined the group. I live in Brisbane Australia and have been pushing a 'dogscooter' for three years.My dogscooter is a DIY job -- canabalised from a BMX bike -- with 18 inch wheels front and rear.
My dogscooter can be seen here:
It's a heavy bike and that's primarily why I'll soon be moving up to the lighter and faster [Finnish] Kickbike.
I've always had a bike of some sort and used one for commuting -- But when I fell ill 20 years ago with Fibromyalgia --an arthritic condition that offers easy and mainly daily access to pain and muscular stiffness -- I found riding bicycles very difficult when my health deteriorated. So I ceased to ride.
The mounting of the bike and the pushing down of the knee were the key elements I had trouble with even when I used a 'girl's'/step through bike. So I got some designs for a footbike and my neighbour welded it up for me.
I was thinking of then getting a Kickbike but the small foot board put me off. My dogscooter also comes with a seat: which is handy when portaging the bike in trains, when coasting down hills or when you need a handle to lift the bike up steps.
It's the level of access that I appreciate the most about kickbiking. That getting on or off is so easy and you proceed at your own pace -- even simply by walking next to the bike and pushing it along (as I do when I bring home the shopping with groceries on the front basket, back carrier and bags hooked over the handlebars). Standard bicycles require effort to be orchestrated in the knees.
Unfortunately the kickbike isn't such a useful mule and footbiking's drawback is that it doesn't lend itself to carrying much stuff.
My main interest in Kickbiking is its role as a rehabilitation tool and commuter vehicle -- for me! Much as I appreciate the drive for speed and competition I think these bikes' role in regard to across the board exercise isn't fully explored --leastways I cannot find much literature on the topic. I think theres' a lot that can be done in way of research.
As an indication, where my mother lives there's woman who gets around the retirement village on a micro and she's 90 years of age. I think the micro is dangerous for her as the tiny wheels do so easily catch -- but hey! she scoots around the place like Tinkerbell.
Since I've used a walking stick for a decade to get around -- my journey with physical aids moved from a cane -- to single and paired trekking poles to help drive me along and pull up my posture. I stopped using the cane because I was stooping with its use. So when I got to considering scootering --and I started with a micro and it was dangerous and a disaster for me -- I was interested in the support the frame would offer me and the cadence I could develop in moving along.
If you can imagine it -- walking with adjustable trekking poles ( like cross country ski-ing) is akin to walking on four feet. A kickbike is similar in that the drive forward is with the legs but the arms are also engaged in pulling you forward as you pull the frame back.
My mother uses a walking frame for the same effect and like my original walking cane it serves only to restrict the range of motion --despite its support.
So now that my workout is becoming more frequent and more intense a key part of it is kickbiking to very good effect indeed.
10 September, 2007
Footbike newsgroup
The USA Kickbike one is pain to join but these ones are worth the effort:
