And last week, we learned how cycling can make you smarter. We also learned how it can help with ADHD. In fact, study after study has shown that exercise – and specifically cycling – can help children and adults with concentration and productivity.

For those pressed for time, commuting may offer a more realistic and sustainable way of getting fitness into your weekly routine. Check with your doctor to see if commuting is right for you.

Below is a blog entry originally published at PeopleforBikes.org

Good News:
Studies Show Bike Commuting Is One of the Best Ways to Stay Healthy

By Jay Walljasper for the PeopleforBikes.org blog

It’s always a pleasure when scientific studies confirm your own long-held opinions, especially when what you think flies in the face of all conventional wisdom.

For instance, who knew that chocolate éclairs and triple fudge caramel brownies actually contain fewer calories than a 12-ounce glass of skim milk? Or that every $1000 you spend on lavish vacations before the age of 65 will, over the long run, provide you with more retirement income than if you’d stashed that same $1000 in a savings account?

Well, to be honest, I made up the fact about the éclairs. And the one about vacations too.

But here’s bona fide scholarly research that excites me in the same way: Biking for transportation appears more helpful in losing weight and promoting health than working out at the gym.

This means I can spend less time wearing a grimace as I endure mind-numbing exercise routines at the Y—and more time wearing a smile as I bike to work, shopping and social events. Just what I always thought.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. According to Australian epidemiologist Takemi Sugiyama, lead author of a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, “Commuting is a relevant health behavior even for those who are sufficiently active in their leisure time.”

Analyzing the research, The Health Behavior News Service notes, “It may be more realistic to accumulate physical activity through active transport than adding exercise to weekly leisure-time routines.”

The four-year study of 822 adults found that found that people commuting to work by car gained more weight on average, even if they engaged in regular exercise, than people who did not commute by car. The authors of the study recommend creating more opportunities for everyone to walk or bike to work.

An earlier study by researchers at the University of Sydney School of Public Health published in Obesity Reviews (the journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity) supports the thesis that leisure-time exercise alone is not enough to prevent obesity. Sixty to 90 minutes of daily physical activity is recommended to curb obesity, which is more time than most people can fit into their busy schedules. That’s why the study’s authors recommend “active transport” like biking and walking for commuting other common trips.

Beyond fighting fat, biking and walking for transportation also boosts overall health. A 2007 paper in the European Journal of Epidemiology concludes “Commuting physical activity, independent of leisure time physical activity, was associated with a healthier level of most of the cardiovascular risk factors.”

The key advantage of traveling by bike over working out at a fitness center is that most people find it easier to do. Instead of vying for scarce free time with many other fun and important things, exercise becomes something we do naturally as part of daily routine. As a study by Portland State University professor Jennifer Dill in the Journal of Public Health Policy shows, 60 percent of Portland cyclists ride for at least 150 minutes per week (the recommended exercise minimum for adults) and that “nearly all the bicycling was for utilitarian purposes, not exercise.”

She adds “a disproportionate share of the bicycling occurred on streets with bicycle lanes, separate paths, or bicycle boulevards”—confirming the importance of bike infrastructure improvements to public health.

In my opinion, all this research also suggests that if I bike a lot for everyday transportation I can sometimes ditch the skim milk in favor of the brownies, and may save enough on auto expenses to both take a cool vacation and fund my retirement account.

Jay Walljasper writes, speaks and consults frequently about biking and other ways to improve our communities. His website: www.JayWalljasper.com

So, how do you commute by bike and still manage to pull off a polished look at the office?

Many a bike commuter will tell you that, unless you have a private office with a personal bathroom or unless you work in the bike industry and have access to employee locker rooms, you’re probably going to have to get by without a shower. That said, there are ways to make yourself and keep your clothes presentable.

Baby wipes or similar products make neat work out of wiping away sweat and odor and any dirt kicked up from the road. Dry shampoo can help wick the sweat away from your scalp. A tube of deodorant at the office is a must.

But, what about your clothes? How do you not come across like a rumpled mess? Those who do not commute every day will often bring extra clothes in on their non-cycling days.

During this year’s National Bike Summit, an industrious gentleman explained one way to ensure freshly pressed suits after a bike ride is to send your dry cleaning out from work. Not a bad idea if that’s an option.

For those who transport their clothes on their bike, carefully rolled in waterproof panniers or in a bicycling garment bag, we found this helpful video on how to fold a suit jacket so that it doesn’t wrinkle:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some of our own commuters offered the following advice when it comes to cleaning up for the office:

Be willing to give up showering until you are back home.  ~ Carol Coplan Babbitt

Find a nearby gym or club with a shower and bike room that allows you to leave your bike overnight if necessary. Check with your office building – many provide these amenities free of charge.  ~ Jeff Kopiwoda

Never attempt to ride in clothes you intend to wear at work.  ~ Carol Coplan Babbitt

It’s better to carry stuff on your bike as opposed to on your shoulders in a backpack or in a bicycle messenger bag. Riding for 20 miles with a bunch of extra weight pressing on your shoulders will eventually cause problems.  ~ Chad Smith

Stash clothes at work if possible (especially on non-bike commuting days) to minimize what you have to carry.  ~ Andy Cohen

It is easier to have clothes at your destination as opposed to carrying everything with you.  ~ Chad Smith

Be organized.  Have everything you will need to clean up and dress waiting for you at the office or gym. Forgetting a towel, cuff links or collar stays can bring down a good morning ride.  ~ Jeff Kopiwoda

Carefully pack your clothes. You don’t want to get to work and realize you forgot to pack your work shoes (happened to me) or underwear (also, happened to me).  ~ Danny Grant

Do you have any tricks for looking great at the office after commuting by bike? Let us know on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you. Share your Bike to Work Weeks pictures there also. And don’t forget to stop by Higher Gear on your way home from the office.

Getting kids to be active can be beneficial for them in ways beyond physical. For one, children involved in sports tend to have higher self esteem. But did you also know that regular exercise can also make them perform better in school?

There has been some interesting research lately.

(For the record, the benefits of physical activity also hold true for the adult brain. To see why cycling is one of the best exercises for the brain, see our follow up article, ADHD & Cycling.)

Dr. Mercola began an article on the subject with the enticing headline: Proven: Kids Get Smarter Just from Doing This One Simple Thing. That one thing? Being active. Below is an excerpt:

An extensive review of relevant research has demonstrated that the more physically active schoolchildren are, the better they do academically.

Researchers analyzed 14 studies, ranging in size from as few as 50 participants to as many as 12,000.

All of the studies involved children between the ages of 6 and 18.

According to the authors:

“Physical activity and sports are generally promoted for their positive effect on children’s physical health; regular participation in physical activity in childhood is associated with a decreased cardiovascular risk in youth and adulthood.

There is also a growing body of literature suggesting that physical activity has beneficial effects on several mental health outcomes, including health-related quality of life and better mood states.

In addition… there is a strong belief that regular participation in physical activity is linked to enhancement of brain function and cognition, thereby positively influencing academic performance.

There are several hypothesized mechanisms for why exercise is beneficial for cognition, including:

1. Increased blood and oxygen flow to the brain
2. Increased levels of norepinephrine and endorphins resulting in a reduction of stress and an improvement of mood
3. Increased growth factors that help to create new nerve cells and support synaptic plasticity

… The increasing pressures to improve academic scores often lead to additional instructional time for subjects such as mathematics and language at the cost of time for being physically active. Given the suggested relationship and the ongoing discussions on the replacement of physical education lessons by academic subjects, we aimed to review the evidence on the longitudinal relationship between these two variables…

To summarize, the literature provides inconclusive evidence on the positive longitudinal relationship between physical activity and academic performance. However, there is a strong general belief that this relationship is present, and research in this area is ongoing.”

Exercise and Academic Performance

Keeping kids active at school is a superb way to increase learning, focus and even test results. As many of you reading this have likely experienced, if your mind is feeling cluttered or you’re having a mid-afternoon slump, a brisk walk or a quick workout can give you a renewed sense of clarity and focus. This is certainly true for kids too.

Two years ago, ABC News reported on a special program being implemented at Naperville Central High School, where students could take part in a dynamic gym class at the beginning of the day, and had access to exercise bikes and balls throughout the day in their classrooms. The results were astounding. Those who participated nearly doubled their reading scores, and math scores increased 20-fold!

Research has shown that after 30 minutes on the treadmill, students solve problems up to 10 percent more effectively.

Although it’s becoming more widely known that physical activity has a direct result on brain function, many schools in the US are removing rather than improving their phys ed programs… This means it’s up to you to encourage your child to stay active after school and on weekends in order to reap the wonderful brain-boosting benefits that exercise has to offer.

How Exercise Boosts Brain Function

Exercise encourages your brain to work at optimum capacity by causing nerve cells to multiply, strengthening their interconnections and protecting them from damage. Animal tests have also illustrated that during exercise their nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors. One in particular, called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health, and has a direct benefit on brain functions, including learning. Further, exercise provides protective effects to your brain through:

•  The production of nerve-protecting compounds
• Greater blood flow to your brain
• Improved development and survival of neurons

Decreased risk of cardiovascular diseases

A 2010 study on primates published in Neuroscience also revealed that regular exercise not only improved blood flow to the brain, but also helped the monkeys learn new tasks twice as quickly as non-exercising monkeys; a benefit the researchers believe would hold true for people as well.

Other Health Benefits of Regular Exercise

There’s absolutely no doubt that kids need exercise, and that most kids aren’t getting enough. Less than one-third of kids aged 6 to 17 get at least 20 minutes of daily exercise in one form or another. This is tragic, considering the multitude of short- and long-term health benefits your child can gain from a regular exercise regimen, including:

• Reduced risk of diabetes and pre-diabetes
• Improved immune system function
• Improved sleep
• Improved mood
• Stronger bones
• Weight loss
• Increased energy levels
• Reduced restlessness or hyperactivity; helps decrease symptoms of ADHD

Speaking of ADHD, see our story from a Bicycling.com article called Riding is My Ritalin, where a boy diagnosed with ADHD and his parents set out to find an alternative to the frequently diagnosed medication for the disorder.

Friday, May 10th is National Bike to School Day. Make sure your child’s bike is ready to ride with a tune-up from Higher Gear.

Most of the advice pointed in one direction: a prescription for amphetamines such as Ritalin. The powerful stimulants (the Food and Drug Administration labels them as Schedule II drugs, the same category as morphine and methamphetamine) have a paradoxical calming effect on the minds of ADHD patients. They’re convenient, effective and popular—90 percent of ADHD patients who take them see improvement. Pop a pill; problem solved. Many parents swore by them. Teachers praised them for bringing calm to unruly classrooms.

With side effects like heart palpitations, sleeplessness, dizziness, irritability, headaches and nausea, the Leibovitzes were reluctant to have their son, Adam, on such medication. Instead, they made sure Adam got plenty of exercise.

That plan worked for three years. “Adam became a high-energy kid who was also very bright.” But when Adam reached middle school, the demands of schoolwork became too much.

His parents worried that he wouldn’t keep up. “As he grew older, every year he’d be expected to concentrate a little harder and sit a little longer in his seat,” his mother says. “When it came time to do his homework, he’d be rolling around under the table or running into the next room. He’d shout out the answers to us. He always knew the answers. He just couldn’t sit still to write them down.” When Adam turned 10, his parents decided to try the medication. On Adam’s first day on Ritalin, he came home from school and declared it a success. “I felt clearer,” he told his parents. “I could sit in class and pay attention.”

During this time, his father attached a trailer bike to his own and tempted Adam to join his Saturday morning training rides with the promise of donuts. That simple weekend ritual would eventually change the boy’s life.

For the past 30 years, athletes, coaches, sports psychologists and medical researchers have probed and debated one of the most complex mysteries of the human body: How does exercise affect the brain? Common sense and our own experience tell us it does something. Every parent knows the best way to settle down a hopped-up kid is to take him out to the playground and run the bug juice out of him. A generation ago, teachers and coaches frequently used this approach as well.

This seemed a homespun, intuitive remedy, but in fact there was a scientific basis for it. In 1978, two years before the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) recognized ADHD as a condition, W. Mark Shipman, MD, conducted a simple test. Shipman was medical director of the San Diego Center for Children, an institute for psychologically troubled children. Back then, kids at the center were among the few in the United States taking psychostimulants such as Ritalin to calm what was then called hyperactivity. Kids can be naturally impulsive, inattentive and overactive, but those with ADHD are more so, all the time. (ADHD is an umbrella term that also includes ADD, attention deficit disorder.)

Shipman sent a group of hyperactive kids running for as much as 45 minutes a day, four days a week. An amazing thing happened: The running kids started acting as if they were getting extra doses of medication. After a while, the doctors who monitored the behavior of each child began lowering drug doses for most of the runners. Very few nonrunning participants had their doses reduced. The doctors who were administering the doses didn’t know which students were running; the changes in behavior were that clear.

Shipman’s study might have led to a boom in physical fitness programs for ADHD-identified kids. It didn’t. Instead, just the opposite occurred: Doctors began writing more prescriptions.

At the time of Shipman’s study, few parents had heard of Ritalin. By 1988, half a million kids were taking the drug. By 1995 that figure had quadrupled. The United States was using five times as much Ritalin as the rest of the planet combined. “An increase of this magnitude in the use of a single medication,” observed pediatrician and Running on Ritalin author Lawrence Diller, MD, “is unprecedented for a drug that is treated as a controlled substance.”

It wasn’t that Shipman’s research was discredited. In fact, at least two other studies conducted in the 1980s confirmed his findings. What happened instead was a societal shift away from time-consuming natural remedies such as exercise and in favor of quick-fix solutionspart of the same cultural sea change that has resulted in the nation’s worsening obesity problem.

Adam stayed on Ritalin through his early teens. Disliking some of the side effects, most notably feeling “emotionally flattened.” 

“I’d take it during the week, go off it on weekends, and then back on again on Monday,” Adam recalls. “On Monday I’d be droned out, kind of a zombie. I had no character, no personality. I hated that.”

So, his sophomore year, Adam asked his parents if he could go off his medication. It wasn’t long before his grades plummeted and Adam was back on medication. Meanwhile, he was riding his bike. A lot.

Jeff Leibovitz’s doughnut lure worked better than he’d imagined. When he was 13, Adam talked his dad into letting him do the TRIRI, a group ride across 300 miles of Indiana countryside, on his own. Around the same time a bike-racing craze swept through the Leibovitzes community, propelled by Guy East, now a professional rider with the Trek-Livestrong team. East, then a teenager, lived nearby, and local kids spotted him whipping past on training rides. Adam and his best friend began entering races.

Adam got really good really fast. He announced himself to the cycling world three years ago, at 15, by finishing third in his first junior national time-trial championship, one place behind 16- year-old phenom Taylor Phinney. Long and lean, Leibovitz had grown into a confident racer with a body that could absorb an uncommon amount of suffering. With his jug ears and big-toothed grin, he could have passed as Michael Phelps’s younger brother.

Adam kept racing and winning: the Quad Cities and Tour of St. Louis crits, time trials at St. Louis, Red River Gorge and the U.S. Junior National Championships. “At a certain point he grew beyond my ability to coach him,” his father says. Jeff’s friend Dean Peterson agreed to work with Adam on a training regimen. Peterson had recently taken over as head coach at Marian University, a small liberal arts school in Indianapolis with one of the nation’s top cycling programs.

Peterson’s workout schedule introduced concepts like rest weeks and peaking into the young athlete’s life. As Adam adapted to the ramped-up program, he began to notice something unusual. He was taking Ritalin on weekdays, but when he trained hard on weekends there seemed to be a carryover effect. On Mondays his mind was calm even before he popped a Ritalin. “I’d experiment with it,” he says. “When I was off the meds and rode a lot, I’d feel great. I could concentrate. When I’d take rest weeks I’d be bouncing off the walls.”

Halfway through his junior year, with his grades back up, Adam sat down with his parents. Again he said: I’ve had it. I want to quit the Ritalin. But this time he had a plan. He’d use cycling to manage his ADHD.

Almost immediately, the drug-free experiment was a remarkable success. Adam cruised through the first half of his senior year. He rode nearly every day. During recovery days he’d find other ways to exercise and soothe his brain. Adam’s progress was so impressiveand his desire to move up to the next level of cycling so greatthat he cut a deal with school administrators to graduate a semester early. When Peterson offered him a place on the Marian University team, he accepted immediately. This past January, Lori and Jeff Leibovitz helped Adam load up the family car and moved him into the teenage glory of a cinderblock dorm room.

He doesn’t know how the cycling clears his head, allows him to focus. All he knows is that it works. “Riding,” he says, “is my Ritalin.”

What is really going on inside Adam Leibovitz’s brain?

It probably isn’t the endorphins, which mainly affect pain suppression and mood elevation. Researchers now understand that the clearing effect more likely has to do with a different, but similarly mysterious, process centered in the basal ganglia, a part of the brain that plays an important role in movement, coordination, attention and learning. The most accepted theory about ADHD is that it’s largely caused by a deficit of neurotransmitters, which relay signals to and from the basal ganglia. Ritalin works by boosting the concentration of two neurotransmitters in particular: dopamine and norepinephrine. Adam’s rigorous race training most likely caused his body to produce the same effect.

“A bout of exercise is like taking a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin,” says John Ratey, MD, a Harvard Medical School professor who has treated and studied ADHD for more than 20 years. His most recent research is chronicled in his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. The Prozac effect comes from endorphins. The Ritalin effect, Ratey says, has to do with boosting the concentration of neurotransmitters in the basal ganglia. “Regular exercise can raise the baseline levels of both norepinephrine and dopamine,” he says, “which are the same neurotransmitters that Ritalin and Adderall go after.”

ADHD drugs don’t suffer from a lack of critics, but Ratey isn’t among them. “I use them for my patients all the time,” he says. “They’re very useful drugs. But in some cases, if a person does enough exercise then Ritalin becomes a little less vital in the treatment of their condition.”

And it’s not just any exercise. Some activities are better brain boosters, and cycling is one of the best. David Conant-Norville, MD, a psychiatrist in Beaverton, Oregon, who specializes in adolescents and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, recently surveyed his colleagues about the best and worst sports for athletes with ADHD. Cycling, swimming and running are tops. At the bottom are soccer, hockey and baseball. The best sports demanded constant physical exertion and a suite of technical movements that engaged brain functions dealing with balance, timing, error correction, decision-making and focus.

“ADHD is imperfectly named,” says Conant-Norville. “People with the condition don’t have a deficit of attention. They have a problem with attention control during boring or mundane tasks. Which is why the intense focus of cycling is great for someone with ADHD. If you’re moving in the pack in a cycling race, you’re highly focused on other riders around you as well as the road ahead. And you’re constantly thinking about strategy, whether to attack or hang back.”

John Ratey agrees. “Challenging the brain and body has a greater positive impact than aerobic exercise alone,” he says. “We’re just starting to see the effects of movement complexity in recent research.”

One study in particular caught Ratey’s eye. Researchers at a German university last year asked 115 teenage students at an elite sports academy to take a baseline test that measured attention and concentration. Then they were split. One group performed 10 minutes of exercise that required complex, highly coordinated movements. The other did simpler movements at the same level of aerobic activity. The kids took another attention and concentration test. Both groups improved their original results, but the students who performed the complex movements significantly outscored the others. The complex coordination, the researchers concluded, “might lead to a preactivation of parts of the brain which are responsible for mediating functions like attention.”

There’s another aspect to it as well. Call it gallows focus. “The prospect of the gallows doth wonderfully concentrate the mind,” Samuel Johnson once famously wrote, and something similar can be said for exercise that involves a touch of risk. Let your attention drift in the peloton, and you might crash into the rider in front of you. Distraction in the dojo is rewarded with a painful body blow. By contrast, a soccer player who loses his concentration is just a guy standing in a field of grass.

Other studies have shown exercise to be beneficial to the brain.

There’s plenty of research to back up the neurotransmitter theory. In 1997, researchers found that treadmill running significantly increased the production of dopaminethat key neurotransmitter, along with norepinephrine, in the brain’s attention centerin rats. In a later study, German scientists found that intense exercise boosted the human body’s production of both dopamine and norepinephrine. In 1999, Michael Wendt, PhD, a researcher at the State University of New York at Buffalo, found marked improvement in ADHD kids who exercised for 40 minutes a day. In 2002, a University of Georgia study reported a promising correlation between exercise and improved focus in children with ADHD.

With physical education programs being cut in school districts across America, it’s no wonder we’ve seen a rise in ADHD diagnoses and a decrease in test scores.

If only we could get more kids on bikes. Now where on earth could one buy a kid’s bike?

Above is an excerpt from Riding is My Ritalin by Bruce Barcott. For the full article, visit Bicycling.com
To learn how and why cycling can help kids perform better in school, see our story Cycling Makes Your Kid Smarter.
For more information on alternative treatments for ADHD, see this article by Dr. Mercola.
For Higher Gear‘s range of non-drug treatments for ADHD – kids bikes by Specialized – come visit us.

The average stage distance has been decreased from lat year, a notoriously grueling year, to 162.2k a day.

Race organizers balanced the traditionally mountainous route with 88.9k of time trials, in a clear attempt to attract big-name stage racers such as Bradley Wiggins, Ryder Hesjedal and Vincenzo Nibali.

The route includes seven mountain finishes but also a 17.4k team time trial (Stage 2), a 55.5k individual time trial (Stage 8) and a 19.4k mountain time trial (Stage 18).

Race organizers have managed to attract one of the best ever fields ever for this year’s Giro. The star-studded start list includes overall contenders, many of the world’s best sprinters and a host of riders chasing stage victories and glory during the three weeks of racing.

Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) rarely named the Giro d’Italia as his first objective of 2013. He will be challenged by home favorite Vincenzo Nibali (Astana). The two are evenly matched, as they showed at the recent Giro del Trentino. The differences in their riding styles – Wiggins being calm and controlled whereas Nibali races with heart – should make for a fascinating battle through the stunning backdrop of the Italian countryside.

Other contenders include last year’s winner Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Sharp), Michele Scarponi (Lampre-Merida), Ivan Basso (Cannondale), Robert Gesink (Blanco Team), Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Cadel Evans (BMC Racing Team).

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the U.S., those with cable sports packages that include beINSport TV can watch broadcast coverage of the Giro beginning Saturday at 8:45am. Programming continues Sunday at 10:30am and resumes during the week at 8:30am. (All times are CDT.) Sites like CyclingNews.com will text live updates.

Thank you for participating in our 2013 Women’s Cycling Clinic. We covered a lot of information and practiced group riding. I hope that you now feel confident enough to join group rides in your neighborhood and with us this summer.

Learning is a continual process. We will continue to provide you with valuable material about cycling on our website. Check in with us regularly or sign up for our weekly email. Here are additional resources:

• Training and Nutrition – Craig Strong with Precision Multisport
• Staying Injury Free – Dr Jon Sebby from Chicago Chiropractic & Sport Medicine

If you are looking for group rides this summer, view our Events & Rides calendar and like us on Facebook to get alerts to updates and changes to our ride

We will be having women’s rides leaving Wilmette on Tuesdays at 9:30am and from Highland Park on Wednesdays at 6:30pm. We also have a no-drop group ride leaving Wilmette on Saturdays at 7:00am.

You can find additional women’s cycling events at:

• Illinois Women Cyclists Meetup
• Chicago Women’s Bike Racing
• The Chainlink

I would also like to thank our instructors who gave their time to make this day possible: Francine Haas, Chris Raymo, Lynn Rivier, Nancy Heymann, Al Weigel, Catherine Watkins and Sheila Wilson. Thank you also to Kathy Corbett, who made the tacos, and Brandon Olson and Beccy Sullivan, who held down the fort.

Ride safely and defensively and have a great summer.

- Sylvie Légère

The participants of our second annual Women’s Cycling Clinic enjoyed beautiful weather on Sunday, May 5th.

Women ranged from new riders to racers, were grouped according to their comfort and skill level and participated in interactive sessions appropriate to their needs. Ladies heard presentations by our sponsors about training and nutrition strategies and stretching techniques.

After an afternoon of learning and practicing bicycle handling sills such as cornering, participants were treated to a post-clinic Cinco de Mayo celebration.

If you would like to be notified of future women’s clinics and rides, like Higher Gear on Facebook and/or sign up for Higher Gear’s Weekly Newsletter. 

Special thanks also goes out to our partners and friends who helped make the day wonderful, including Chicago Chiropractic & Sports Medicine, Precision Multisport, RoadID.com, and Team LunaChix.

Health and Productivity

More than 2/3 of the U.S. adult population is overweight or obese, costing our nation more than $68 billion in healthcare and personal costs annually. More than one in four kids are overweight, as well. Researchers compared the relationship between bicycling and walking travel and obesity in 14 countries, 50 U.S. states and 47 U.S. cities, and found statistically significant negative relationships at all levels.

Bicycle commuting is a great way to squeeze regular exercise into a hectic schedule. For a 180-pound man, a 10-mile round trip bike commute burns 400 calories; for a 130-pound woman, this same commute burns 300 calories. A study of nearly 2,400 adults found that those who biked to work were fitter, leaner and less likely to be obese and had better triglyceride levels, blood pressure and insulin levels, than those who didn’t actively commute to work.

According to a survey by the Transportation Research Board, more than 80% of bicycle commuters believe their health has improved since they started bicycle commuting. Plus, bike commuters report lower stress and greater feelings of freedom, relaxation, and excitement than car commuters.

Employers in the community benefit from a healthy, active workforce, as well. Cyclists on average take 15% fewer days off from work for illness than non-cyclists, and generally accomplish more work. There’s nothing like riding to stimulate circulation, relieve stress, allow creative thought and establish attitude toward oneself and one’s environment.

Bicyclists are less likely to be affected by traffic congestion, too. Whether they ride on bike paths or roads, bicycles are much more maneuverable than automobiles. Wide lanes, shoulders and bike lanes provide space for bicyclists to ride right past traffic and on to work.

Economic Savings

Bicycle commuting saves on parking fees, parking tickets, fuel costs, auto maintenance costs and transit fares. According to analysis by the League, Americans saved more than $4.6 billion by bicycling instead of driving in 2012 alone.

The average annual operating expense of a bicycle is just $308, versus more than $800 for a car. In some large urban areas, it is possible to save more than $200 per month on parking alone. According to CEOs for Cities, New Yorkers save $19 billion per year because they rely less on cars than residents of other major U.S. cities. A new bicycle and cycling gear would pay for itself in a few months.

Portland, Ore., residents save $2.6 billion per year thanks to spending less time in cars and more time biking or walking. Investing infrastructure is cost-effective, too. For $60 million – the cost of a single mile of urban highway – the city built a full city-wide bicycle network.

Biking is good for business, too. Research in multiple cities has shown that patrons arriving by bike visit more often and spend more money. Since the costs of employee parking sites are growing, many companies are looking for cheaper alternatives. It costs the same to build parking for 75 bikes as it does for just four cars!

Environmental Benefit

The transportation sector is responsible for more than 70% of all petroleum use in the U.S., and NASA reports that motor vehicles are the greatest contributor to climate change. More bicycle use means a smaller carbon footprint. During the 2012 National Bike Challenge, Americans kept more than 13 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere by riding their bikes instead of driving their cars.

Beyond carbon dioxide, cars are the single largest source of U.S. air pollution. Short trips are up to three times more polluting per mile than long trips. When bicycling is substituted for short auto trips, 3.6 pounds of pollutants per mile are not emitted into the atmosphere.

Add to that: There are 800 million car parking spaces in the U.S., totaling 160 billion square feet of concrete and asphalt. Ten bikes can park in the space used by a single motor vehicle!

Lots of activities are planned for National Bike Month, including:

May 1st: Get Up & Ride National Challenge begins
May 8th: Bike to School Day
May 13th-17th: Bike to Work Week
May 15th: Ride of Silence
May 17th: Bike to Work Day
May 26th: Chicago Bike the Drive

Learn more about these and other bicycling events in our Chicagoland Cycling Calendar.

Make sure your bike is tuned up and you’re ready for the activities of National Bike Month.

If you’re looking for a way to make MORE fun, check out Bike Month Bingo.

Looking for fun ways to check off some of the Bingo boxes? There are lots of scheduled for National Bike Month, including:

May 1st: Get Up & Ride National Challenge begins
May 8th: Bike to School Day
May 13th-17th: Bike to Work Week
May 15th: Ride of Silence
May 17th: Bike to Work Day
May 26th: Chicago Bike the Drive

Learn more about these and other bicycling events in our Chicagoland Cycling Calendar.

Make sure your bike is ready to ride. Bring it in to Higher Gear for a tune up.

Want to print your own Bicycle Bingo card? Click this link: NBM_bingo_8.5×11

A new rider shouldn’t be focused on getting into an aggressive bike just because it was on prominent display at the Tour de France. Rather a rider should get a bike to fit his body, his riding style and his goals.

Recently, Dan Empfield wrote a very informative article on Slowtwitch.com this Spring about the bikes created for the Spring Classics.

In the article, Empfield argues that the beauty of these bikes built for the Spring Classics isn’t in their ability to gobble up the cobbles but rather in their “endurance” geometry – which is better suited for most people.

Fredo always advises people in our shops: it’s easier to transform a more relaxed geometry into a more aggressive one than the other way around. It’s why the Specialized Roubaix works for more people than the Specialized Tarmac – not because most people will be riding on the cobble-stoned streets of Europe.

Some cyclists who initially fall into the relaxed geometry may find that, over time, their flexibility increases and their riding style changes. A few quick changes to that “relaxed” frame – swap out the stem and the seat post and a few minor adjustments – can bring them into a more aggressive position.

But to turn a more aggressive bike into a a more relaxed bike turns the bike into something it’s not supposed to be and, as Dan Empfield points out, can get a little out of hand – with spacers, creating a less stable and less aerodynamic bike. (In effect, losing any advantages of that “racing” geometry.)

Empfield discusses what is truly important in a bike fit, based on our “bicycle DNA,” and why “endurance road bikes” are better suited to most people:

I think you and I agree that we all have a set of fit coordinates that match our morphologies, pedaling dynamics, riding styles. Our saddles are positioned at a certain height, and they are set back some distance behind the bottom bracket. We each have a “cockpit” distance that would describe the length of our bike position, and that length might be defined as the distance from the saddle to the handlebar’s “tops”, or maybe as the distance from the saddle to the hoods. That handlebar sits some distance below the saddle. These metrics, along with handlebar width and the preferred drop of our road bar hooks pretty well describe our bike positions, and your position is not fungible. It’s part of our bicycle DNA. It follows you around from bike to bike.

Now, it’s true that if you earned your living riding flat criteriums only – or if you earned your living as a leadout man for your team’s sprinter – yes, your saddle (in fact, your whole cockpit) would be a slight bit further forward and your handlebar a slight bit lower. In other words, you’d be riding criterium geometry instead of road geometry. However, most of us don’t fit that description. …Most top bike racers don’t fit that description either.

…Which brings me circling back to “my” bike choices, which do not depend on whether I’m riding cobbles, chip-and-seal macadam, or smooth-as-glass pavement. Do I really raise my handlebars 20mm or 30mm when I race on a rough road, and drop them 30mm back down when I race a smooth one? Do you? Or is your bike fit determined by your morphology, and is it pretty similar regardless of the road surface, or whether you’re riding 30 hard miles or 70 hard miles? I think I know your answer.

…I don’t know why bike companies are so reticent to acknowledge that strong, flexible riders who race at high levels – along with enthusiasts who wish to emulate them – need bikes of various geometries strictly for morphological reasons. Morphology is not one reason the Roubaix and Domane make sense. It’s the only reason!

Thankfully, with each passing season bike companies are less and less likely to insult their customers by maintaining that their lowest geometries are for racers; taller geometries are for weekenders and duffers; and taller yet geometries are for women and men who need compliance (code for men who are wimps or weaklings).

 

…In my opinion all relevant companies making performance road bikes are now in one of two categories: those that offer this newer geometry [featuring taller head tubes and narrower cockpits (models built with, per size, more Stack and less Reach)], and those that will offer it.

For further reading, check out Dan Empfield’s recent article on Slowtwitch. Or his earlier article on stack and reach.

Stop in to talk with us about a new bike fit, being fit on your current bike or Specialized’s BG FIT that is coming to Higher Gear soon.

Like many other LBS, we do more than just sell bikes. We offer Fit services – with our Calfee Fit Cycle and Specialized BG FIT system. This is important for anyone buying a new bike or anyone who wants to be more comfortable and perform better on their current bike.

We also offer helpful clinics and services. Our annual Women’s Cycling Clinic is popular with local women and women who drive from far suburbs to take part in a fun and informative day. We offer flat clinics and even put together a video that will walk you step-by-step through your flat fix roadside via your smartphone.

We have group rides – from the welcoming to the challenging – as well as training plans to get you to your century, specifically the WFRT, at the end of the summer.

We can be a social hangout. (That’s why we have a place for you to sit when you come visit.) And we can be a party on wheels. (Hello cyclocross!)

But we’ve performed some services that aren’t at all related to cycling. Below are some of our favorites.

Some that probably are likely not unique to Higher Gear include:

• Use our compressor to blow up beach balls, kiddie pools and beach toys.
• Order and replace tires on strollers, wheelchairs, wagons & golf carts.
• Add “bling” (bells, streamers and lights) to walkers.
• Repair wheelchairs.

Some that may be uniquely related to Fredo:

• Throw extra food on our grill.
• Unlock a car door – after keys were locked inside.
• Break into the business’ next door bathroom – when an employee was locked inside.

And probably our favorite non-cycling related job (certainly Fredo-related and definitely Fredo’s favorite):

• Pull out a loose tooth!

At Higher Gear, we have the right tool for the right job… and then some extra (odd) jobs too!

Come on in, pull up a stool, and check out our services and our service!