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Easiest Way to Stay Fit is to Get Rid of your Vehicle.
Easiest Way to Stay Fit is to Get Rid of your Vehicle.
December 2, 2021 by Marg Archibald
When there is a cozy, air conditioned, metal privacy pod with a great sound system parked at the curb in front of your house, it will be your default transportation. Even when the trip is small.
Car gone - you will walk, ride a bicycle or take the bus.
It truly is that simple. If fitness is a priority for you, consider ditching the car. If a sustainable city is important to you, get rid of the vehicle. If modelling new age behaviour is something you want to show your children, grandchildren, neighbours, colleagues, go by bike.
Riding a bicycle offers range and flexibility. Granted they have been hard to come by during covid-19 but that is levelling out and the churn in the used bike circuit opens new options and fits oh so nicely into reduce-re-use-recycle. You can find great equipment on line.
No more driving to the gym, where you pay to share the air with other panting people and miss out on the proven benefits of being outside. You can replace that for errands, commuting to work, visiting friends, and riding around for the sheer pleasure of being on a bicycle.
Granted kids and hockey gear are an example of vehicle-required situations. Likewise a formal dinner across town and delivering yard waste. There are some situations a vehicle or friend’s vehicle is necessary. But not as many as you’d think.
Let’s talk safety, the first reason people give for not cycling. The more you ride, the more tricks you learn about staying safe, communicating with drivers, being seen even in the dark. Reflective vests and arm-bands for your signalling arm, lights on bike, helmet and even your clothes are basics. But then I’m someone who wears a reflective vest walking. Sometimes I head out looking like a Christmas tree.
Your insight on how drivers think will get sharpened - for example learning that drivers turning right onto a one way street may not know you are there beside them or that you are cycling straight through the intersection while they are shoulder checking for vehicles barrelling down on them from the other direction while they creep around the corner. Conversation with other cyclists will ramp up your awareness of spots to be alert.
Support the city in their push to improve cycling and pedestrian safety and join advocacy groups who push for more. Always: safety first.
As we go into winter, you may think bicycles need to be put away. Here’s another thought: they need studded or gnarly, heavy-treaded tires. Some people eventually get a separate winter bike to switch back and forth through freeze-thaw cycles. Winter cycling takes some getting used to but the sense of accomplishment making it to work through the snow or over the icy ruts with nothing but your leg power, that’s a guaranteed sense of accomplishment before your work day even starts. Your cycling colleagues will share with you what it means to step out of work at the end of the day, put on your helmet, get on your bike and ride away from it all. You arrive home refreshed, you’ve had your workout and are ready to enjoy the evening.
You’ll dress differently when your bike is your transportation. I get up in the morning and put on cycling clothes because chances are I’ll be riding or walking at some point. It’s what I wear all day. My cycling wardrobe is expanding, non-cycling, not so much.
You’ll need to think layers and be ready to drop them as you heat up, particularly cycling the hills of Kamloops, and be ready to suit back up with warm and dry and windproof when you go back downhill. You learn to read your body and know the point to drop a layer or put one back on. No one sweats more than I do. I can generate full body soaking. That’s a problem in cold weather. Consider a merino wool under layer and even changing at your destination. This is an area that each rider works out for themselves so don’t get discouraged if it takes you a while to figure it out.
Bike racks on the front of buses provide another flexible option for getting around in a hilly city.
Get a good city map and explore quiet routes. I never ride on fast, busy streets. Depending on where you live - - and admittedly downtown is the easiest place to live and ride out from there - - you can find off-beat roads, quiet streets, paths, to get where you want to go. Experiment. For example: to take my recycling to General Grants on the North Shore, I cross the Red Bridge, wind through the luxuriously low-traffic, flat countryside of tk’emlups te secwepemc land, cross Halston Connector at the light and I’m there. The longer you ride the more delightful bike-friendly routes you’ll find. (Note: Out of respect for tk’emlups land I went to their band office for permission to ride those roads. I was not only welcomed but given suggestions for low-traffic roads.)
If you are retired there is no reason to opt for a car rather than a bike and plenty of reasons to prioritize fitness as your new, number one job.
It is a luxury to live your daily life congruently with your values. If you are reading this you value the future of our Earth. Ditch the vehicle to live that value daily, a gift to yourself and our Earth.
A cycling staycation in Kamloops
A cycling staycation in Kamloops
April 3, 2023 by Corene Mackay
Sometime in the depths of January, in the middle of the bleak monotony of winter, I realized that I needed to do something. I needed a vacation, or an adventure. I wanted to do something exciting, like ride my bike across the country.....
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