I'm back!
Well my plan to go back to school while staying with my mom went completely bust, so I am back in town.In some ways my stay with my mom could be the making of a new sitcom... cycling advocate goes to live with his pro-car/anti-cycling mom. Not that she really is anti cycling but why bike to the local store (3/4 of a mile) when you can use the car to zoom, zoom there and back? And besides they make perfectly good indoor bicycles where you don't have to get all sweaty when you exercise. - Much like society that is not against cycling per se but not many are found of cyclists biking in the travel lane as cyclists should bike on trails. And speaking of trails we shouldn't build any more because they are "expensive" and we "need" every penny for road expansion. - Which reminds me of a joke: someone asked a smoker how long they have been smoking and then went on to say by this time you could have gotten a Lamborghini with all that money that was spent on cigarettes. So the smoker asks "Do you smoke?" "No" - "Then where is your Lamborghini?" - Doing without something inexpensive does not easily yield something very expensive.
I'm amazed how much our society has dumbed down exercise, sure something is better than nothing but the minimum amount of exercise should not be treated like a maximum and as such bad things will happen if you go over the minimum. My mom really did not like me biking 13 miles to school, such a waste of time she said. But wait, she does believe I should get an hour of exercise so let's throw that into the calculations and oh look I am saving time and (gas) money by biking to school.
Then there was the travel limit. Most people are comfortable with a half hour travel time regardless of the mode of travel. So anything outside a 10 mile radius was too far to go by car so certainly that must mean that it is too far too far to go by bike. This lead to a lot of interesting conversations about my longer bike rides. While "little is known about any health benefits associated with infrequent bouts of exercise"* otherwise known as being a weekend warrior but still I think there is a major benefit, one aspect is that it's like a economical mini vacation, I get to see new things or visit places not in my normal stomping grounds, so ya, I like 52 vacations a year. ;)
Anyway, it's good to be back. I'm enjoying time with my kids and my granddaughter (who just had her 4th birthday party.) I'll will also note that I am looking for an economical place to stay so if you happen to know of anything drop me a line.
Thanks and bike love!
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*The “Weekend Warrior” and Risk of Mortality
"In stratified analysis, among men without major risk factors, weekend warriors had a lower risk of dying, compared with sedentary men."
<a href="http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/7/636.long">http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/160/7/636.long</a>;
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