Category Archives: Health

The XVI Iberian Congress

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The XVI Iberian Congress: “Beyond mobility” on bikes and cities took place in Cascais, Portugal, from May 2nd to 4th, 2019. This annual event started back in 1996 thanks to the support of ConBici (Spanish Coordinator in pursuit of Bicycles) and FPCUB (Portuguese Federation of Cycle Tourism and Bicycle users). The Covid-19 made it impossible in 2020, and there is the prevision of continuing with it in Barcelos (Portugal) and Barcelona (Spain) in 2021 at the time I write this post.

Audiences enjoyed speeches about a variety of subjects such as improving communities to strengthen the bike movement, better accessibility, how bikes enhance economy, EuroVelo (the European bike line net to cross from one country to another without stopping pedaling), environment and health, raising cycle tourism or Velocity 2021. Moreover, participants uplifted their mood in the bike ride and local cuisine in the 3-days congress.

It concluded in:

  • The need of norms and laws in the bike building process to ensure security

  • The debate proposed bikes as part of economic accessibility and a boom of local economy in comparison of the car counterparts

  • The challenge of bikes in Africa, with special attention to the lack of bicycle infrastructures and the stigma of relating this way of transport with poverty

  • Transporting senior citizens in bikes, fro instance cargo bikes, helps benefiting local communities

  • Promoting bike use in schools makes societies less dependent of car and petrol

  • Such change is importantly improved when favorable laws and figures of reference, mainly parents, contribute

  • The congress also pointed out the need of technician training to create well prepared persons who design bike infrastructures

  • Another spot was the lack of reliable studies regarding the economic impact of bike on society and the hope of the BooST “Boosting Starter Cycling Cities”  project will solve part of it

  • Moving from car cities to decarbonized cities

  • Promoting open data acquisition in regards of sustainable mobility

  • Intermodality

Handlebar and body position

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Handlebar is an essential part of every bicycle. It allows the rider to lead her bike into the selected direction. On the other hand, it determines the biker body position. It is specially important to increase the bike comfortableness when pedaling for long distances, like in cycle tourism or great journeys on bike. This way, ache in arms, shoulders and back is greatly reduce and even it disappears because our body weight rests in our butts.

An additional advantage of adopting a more upright position on a bike by acting on its handlebar is that your field of vision is improved. This fact is much appreciated in urban riding due to the fact of you should pay attention to cars, pedestrians, other bikers and traffic signs. Moreover, initiating a ride is easier with a upright back as well as natural.

It the next picture you can see how different is the field of vision depending on your back upright:

Youngest cyclists

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After writing the post about the oldest bikers, my intention was to reflect who were the youngest cyclist in the world. I could not find the answer on the net, so I am going to explain a little about the process a lot of us have experienced with great pleasure.

Learning to ride a bicycle, a two-wheeled bike without training wheels, mostly occurs sometime between the ages of 3 and 8 (although some adults learn it because they did not have the opportunity when they were young, and fortunately, people do not forget how to ride). The average age is 5. Indeed, most kids just learn when they are ready if their families can provide them with bikes. Curiously, a systematic review found that children who started biking at ages between 3 and 5 suffer higher injuries than those who were 3 to years old.

Sliding the 3 to 5 group, kids between 3 and 4 years are in significant gross motor skills development. For example, they learn to balance on one foot, walk on their tiptoes, climb, hop and skip. A 3 years old child can pedal, use a handlebar and ride a tricycle, but she does not have the balance required to ride a two-wheeled bicycle. Better, she can ride a bike with training wheels and after she dominates it, increases coordination and muscle, move to a bike without training ones. It is a good idea use foot brakes instead of hand brakes in this age group.

Regarding the 4 and 5 group, these children are ready for two-wheeled bicycles. Most 5-year-old kids have balance and coordination enough to ride a bike without training wheels. However, they might not understand the risks of riding near traffic or without paying attention to crossings. Then, adult supervision is required to avoid falls and injuries.

7 tips to diminish heat when riding a bike

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1- Get up early: Starting your ride early in the morning has the advantages of lower temperatures and less road traffic. If you hate it, just give it a try and you will discover it is worth it.

2- Check your bicycle: This tip is useful for every day. Pump up the wheels, lubricate the chain, fit the brakes… In essence, tuned-up your bike. This way pedaling will cost you less effort.

3- Determine your energy: To sweat is necessary to your body. Basically, this natural behavior allows reducing the body temperature. However, if you sweat too much, you can hit the wall as a result of a loss of energy caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. Ration yourself and take into account your limits. In other words, instead of competing against others, better compete against yourself. Always have in mind that the most important is enjoying.

4- Hydrate: A valid tip not only for cycling, but for whatever physical activity specially in Summer. Drink water before, during and after the exercise. Do not wait until you feel thirsty. A rule of thumb is drink water every 15 minutes. If you drink cold water, do it slowly. How do I determine my hydration state? After riding your bike, the easiest way is looking at your pee. If it is too dark, you should drink more water the next time.

5- Plan your route: In a city, the shorter path does not necessarily means the ideal one. Usually, taking an indirect route on small and quiet streets means taking advantage of shadows produced by buildings. If you plan a mountain route, decide on those which have less slope.

6- Choose appropriate garment: Breathable fabrics are your ally in Summer. Moreover, use light clothing not to attract too much sun. Furthermore, sunglasses improve your eyesight, and avoid blinding and mosquitoes on the eyes.

7- Protect your skin: Sunscreen is basic when riding in Summer months. Select on sunscreen with high sun protection factor, at least 30. If you plan a long route, it is better bringing a small cream jar along, and use it conveniently.

Less waste grounds

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In some pro-car cities, waste grounds are usually occupied by cars. These empty lands appeared as a result of the house bubble crash or because of numbness politicians. The fact is that these areas can be better places for instance by transforming them into public gardens. This way the neighbors’ life quality increases, children can play without risk of being run over, senior citizens can drift around and everybody can play sports. Thus, everybody benefits.

When brave mayors decide to convert waste grounds into gardens, some car drivers normally claim against it due to the fact of losing free parking lots. The most idiot ones argue that as they lose them, they should pay less car taxes. What they do not see, or do not want to understand, is the problems cars cause because of driving or having them. A car is like a weapon. It has been used in the past by terrorist to cause victims, the poison expels by exhaust pipes kills every year hundreds of thousands of people around the globe, thousands more are killed in car crashes and millions probably die because of global warming. Indeed, driving polluting vehicles is the source of 20% of all US emissions (http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/car-emissions-and-global-warming#.Wa7nNdRLdAg) or 17% of the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions (https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/impact-of-real-world-driving-emissions/).

So, the more green areas, the better quality of life for citizens.

Critical Mass Rides

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The Critical Mass Rides is a worldwide Critical Mass that will take place in a lot of locations on the same day: September 8. here you have the call  (in Spanish). Basically, it works similarly as the Critical Mass, but different groups are preparing special events to make it impressive and funny with aims such as human health, environment, streets for people, etc. The Critical Mass Rides link indicates concepts and tips to make it successful, though you can follow them or not. Moreover, it encourages bikers in places where there is not Critical Mass to join the cause and spread the word. In fact, this event could be the seed of the Critical Mass where it does not exist today thanks to the global impulse.

Bike and health

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Riding a bike is commonly understood as a way to practice aerobic exercise since there is not need to carry too much weight and its design eases riding even for fat people. Nevertheless, there are improvements like rear racks, bicycle trailers or bags which make it even light. From a healthy point of view, studies across the world have been done to determine to which degree riding is beneficial to people. The overwhelming literature conclude how good is to ride. By making regular cycling, the risk of death from all causes is cut by more than 40% and the reduction in the risk of cancer and heart disease is 45% (https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j1456). Mental health is also boost by biking. And the benefits are not only experienced by individuals’ health, but also the whole society (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/04/death-air-pollution-cut-if-uk-hits-walking-and-cycling-targets).

Just to name one paper, a scientific study (among others) (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/08/cycling-keeps-your-immune-system-young-study-finds) demonstrates that cycling makes younger the immune system. Kind of rejuvenate oneself. It is marvelous. Moreover, it preserves muscles and helps maintaining controlled levels of body fat and cholesterol. Better than taking drugs, biking is an excellent allied for senior citizens. There is no need to use face creams to hold back the effects of ageing. Just ride a bicycle!

Bicycle-sharing system

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Intelligent mayors are introducing bicycle-sharing systems to improve the use of this ecological way of transport all around the world. Allowing citizens to use them at cheap cost increases the number of bikers on streets who adopt better habits in turn. As a result, cities and villages are benefiting from it as the air inhabitants breath is more convenient from a health perspective and the noise is reduced.

Although bike-share began in Europe in 1965, it was not until the 2000s that a viable format appeared thanks to information technology. Nowadays the public systems include technological advantages about which I will talk in the future. The bikes in the bike-share services varied as bicycles themselves do. There are normal and electrical bicycles, those which works with a card or a mobile app, with solid wheels or full of compressed air, etc. All these differences have impacts on the service. For example, the solid wheels minimize their maintenance since they do not poke, but it is easier to have an accident when raining.

One key element is the anchor system. If two pieces form the anchor, it is more complicated to put the bike on the station. On the other hand, if it only has one, metallic piece the action is facilitated. The bicycles weight is also another point to have in mind. Too heavier bikes discourage people to use them, whereas light ones are better specially if they move on a hilly city. Interconnection is also important mostly when close cities and villages have their own bike-sharing services. There is nothing more inconvenient that the obligation of changing the bike, and hence having for instance two bike cards, the moment you pass from one location to another.

To sum up, bike-sharing is a good way to improve the number of bikes, but before launching it, some issues should be taken into account.

Neighboring fights (2/2)

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Continuing with the neighboring fights, there are some that do not center on specific actions such as changing an avenue or buddying a railroad track. They look for a complete improvement in broader areas like the whole city. Given the dimension of the target, multiple actions are needed. In this second post on this topic, I am going to talk about Valencia camina (Valencia walks) and the 8-80 platform in Pamplona.

Valencia camina (http://arquitecturia.org/valenciacamina , in Spanish) was born in February 2018 as a shout from pedestrians against what negatively interfere in the day-to-day movements. You know, lots of architectural barriers, crosses with poor visibility, nonsense routes (for example the need to go from point A to point B in a straight line instead of walking in a U because of the bad urban development), etc. They claim for more safety, universal accessibility, school paths, zero vision (zero accidents), walking paths quality, streets with vegetables, noise control, pollution control, secure road surface, bus stops according to the pedestrian paths, etc. They collaborate to the European FLOW project (Furthering Less Congestion by Creating Opportunities For More Walking and Cycling) with the aim of putting walking and biking on the fair base with the motor-based ways of transport as a solution to jam among others (http://h2020-flow.eu/about/overview/). In a few words, they look for a more human city.

Similarly as above, the 8/80 platform in Pamplona started as a group of people demanding improvements in their lives. They have criticized laws which discriminate the use of bicycle or worsen pedestrian walkings. Furthermore, they publish a piece of news every time a pedestrian is killed in a car accident, denounce dangerous crossings and support bike vindications. This movement was imported from Canada (https://www.880cities.org) with the goal of improving the quality of life for people by bringing citizens together to enhance mobility and public space so that together can be created more vibrant, healthy and equitable communities.

Neighboring fights (1/2)

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City developments at several levels affect the neighbors lives. Sometimes it produces clashes as people protest against them. Lost of quality life, social problems, price increment in common supplies, noise, pollution, all these elements can angry persons and as a result they tend to rebel. Well not in all cases. Fortunately, there are brave people who claim against what they hate and take actions in order to try to solve what upset them. Most of the negative elements of cities development is related to the misunderstander of urban development just for a few. In such cases, politicians and friends benefit from new infrastructures which harm neighbors lives.

In Spain there are a lot of such examples and the neighbors fights. Just to name a few, we have the association against the tunnel in the Pérez Galdós avenue in Valencia and the platform for the railroad track buddying in Murcia. Both share a common desire: Change the city infrastructures which bother them.

The association against the tunnel in the Pérez Galdós avenue (http://www.fueratunelperezgaldos.com, in Spanish) claims for adapting the road to the XXI century. At the time I am writing this post, it is a long avenue without trees or plants, with minute sidewalks, 4 car lines per direction and car accidents are common since the speed limits are not respected. Moreover, it has an uncovered tunnel from which noise and pollution contribute to make this avenue an undesired place. What the association claims is to broaden sidewalks, plant trees, put a bike line, close the tunnel, force to fulfill the speed limit and reduce the car use in that area. If they finally achieve them, surely Valencia will be better.

The platform for the railroad track buddying (http://www.soterramientomurcia.es, in Spanish) has been fighting for 30 years. They protest against the railroad which divide the city into two parts every month. By buddying the railroad track, Murcia would be again only one city. They organized a protest in this city and more than 50.000 people support them. They have the people backing but politicians again do not hear them. A national agreement was signed back in the 2000s before the crisis. In this official document between the Spanish government and the local one, the national government compromised to pay the railroad track buddying. But the reality has turn its back to Murcia. As time went by, the option to solve this problem remains remote. Nevertheless, thanks to the official signature the case is in court. You can see how idiot some politicians are. If justice exists, the Murcian platform for the railroad track buddying will not make sense as its claim will have been reached. Better later than never!