Things I've Learned from Yoga Helpful for Bike Posture

To assume that anyone has as bad posture as me when doing anything would probably stretch the truth too far, but after an accident a year ago last September I had to relearn how to walk (apparently I've been walking with the wrong part of my foot, giving me duck walk generally), and as a result I wanted to share a few thoughts that might help other people understand better how to arrange one's body while on a bike, particularly in the conscious ways that yoga activates components of your body.

1) Abdominals and core are the seat of balance and weight:

If you're like me, you ride, or have rode, your bike putting equal weight on your ass (into your seat) and on your arms (particularly, your shoulders) making contact with the handlebars. You may be like me, in the panicky way I ride sometimes, and grip the handlebars too hard because of a secret fear that something will happen to yank them from your hands and you will go tumbling into some dangerous scenario.

Spending so much energy and strength on arm stability and load-bearing is counterproductive and sets you up for some nice carpal-tunnel/tennis elbow action that I currently have going on with my body. 

Try and hold your handlebars as lightly as possible and get padded gloves--they reduce the amount of impact your hand and wrists take. If your bike is tuned up, most likely the way you balance on your seat can help determine the direction of your ride almost as much as the steering, so focus on pulling your core into your center (when you can pop up and off the seat easily without thinking about it means that you've effectively pulled your core toward center) for better overall balance and control of your bike. 

Use your abs by to pull your weight over your pedals as you pedal standing up while climbing hills--again to get more pressure off of your arms. The added weight will make pedaling up hills easier too. The same applies when going downhill where you are most prone to brake hard. Use your abdominals to push your weight backwards over your seat so you don't need to bear weight and brake with the same part of your body.

Riding where the road is relatively flat, push your chest foward when pedaling to help keep your abs activated and to pull strain out of your lower and midback. Flatten your abdominals against your spine as you do this to reinforce the "puffed chest." Your upper torso can get a little fucked up from bicycling and needing to stabilize the bike and learning how to do the downward dog posture correctly can help you build an awareness of how working your abdominals, chest, and legs appropriately can help keep you balanced and reduce the wear and tear on your joints.

2) Some decent hardware can help

In an effort to reduce the load bearing role of your arms I prefer using bullhorn bars or short handlebars. Drop bars are not ideal in this regard. Moreover, with drop bars, if I want to sit upright in my bicycle seat, I tend to find the placement of brakes on drop bars to fairly awkward.

Making sure your brake cables are sufficiently tightened (this can often be done manually without tools, with a small tightening mechanism on the brakes themselves), that the pads are not thoroughly worn out, and the rubber isn't too old or stiff similarly produces reduced wrist crunching, which can prevent the later suck if you have any job that requires manual hand activities such as typing.

Using toe clip pedals or clipless pedals emphasize the correct part of your foot with which to pedal--the ball of your foot. One thing that long time bicycle commuters, bike messengers and the like will complain of is their knees are shot. To reduce strain on your knees it's crucial that you pedal through the ball of your foot. Getting the right kind of pedal can help you accomplish this.

Even you're pedaling with the correct half of your foot its easy to neglect using the ball. This is why I try to emphasize a loose flex of the foot as you pedal (from yoga)

It's also worth making sure you check your tires regularly and clean your chain regularly both will reduce the shock of impact your body will take from riding and reduce the force required from pedaling, making it easier on your knees. 

3) And since we're discussing knees so much...

It's worth noticing where your knees go as you ride. It's much better that when you pedal your knees are running parallel rather than splayed out in opposite directions. Again this can wear out parts of your legs and knees in a corrosive way.

4) Hips...

Can also get really fucked from riding. I have some of the tightest, and therefore least flexible hips from years or riding. It's a good idea to learn how to do some stretches for these as they can really ache as you get older. 

I recommend doing a modified pigeon pose while sitting at your desk after a commute. Here is what half-pigeon looks like:

Here is a video of a German woman telling you how to do pigeon pose:

Doing this at your desk operates on the same principle where you stack one ankle on the knee of the other leg (which is perpundicular to the floor). All the while flexing your foot you should press the knee of the raise leg toward the floor in order to begin opening your hips. Don't force your knee down but gradually increase the pressure you use in a gentle manner.

(Concluding caveat: And yes, I am appropriating a highly commodified version of an ancient practice while stripping it of its deeper religious significance such that I expend stress, knock out various knots and aches in my body, and then cry quietly to myself while I lay in corpse pose the end)

2nd Accident, Hateful Insurance Companies

After being hit by a car earlier this summer I was still resolved to commute around Pittsburgh once the fog of the concussion lifted and I had the opportunity to adjust and build up a spare bicycle I had purchased from a friend a year before. 


Needless to say the accident before made me much more careful of how I conduct myself on the road, the risks I'm willing to take, and the attention I pay to others on the road. 


On one such careful commutes to school from my home I was sitting at a red light in a very busy intersection (actually approximately 2 blocks from the previous accident) and preparing to cross. This red light is particular because it is on a very busy road that is also between two university campuses. In order to allow pedestrians the ability to cross said road without having the potential threat of being struck by a turning vehicle the pedestrian walk sign lights up 10 seconds before the green light for vehicles headed in the same direction. 


At one such moment, sitting at the red light, I looked at each light in turn making sure all reds were illuminated as with the pedestrian light. I saw no vehicles in the intersection. I started pedaling into the intersection. I hear the roar of acceleration coming from my left turning just in time to see a red Suburban slamming into me and the tanned, chubby, blonde-hair ringed face of the driver staring down at me as she attempted to brake. She failed to run me over, and I looked up at her weepy face and yelled, "not another time this fucking year!" I limped to the corner dragging my bent (steel frame bicycle) behind me.


The driver parked and ran up to me weeping and shrieking to see if I was ok. Other drivers and bicyclists stopped and circled around checking on me, calling the police, and helping get the driver's insurance information. The Pittsburgh police did their usual bang up job by insisting that they were not going to write a report, nor were they going to issue the driver a citation for running the red light and hitting me. They were instead much more interested on whether or not the driver who was helping me was properly respecting their authority. (This is no shock as the Pittsburgh police are known to have a hefty history of violating resident's constitutional rights) 


The driver continued to hyperventilate and since I didn't detect immediately any broken bones and any real emergency, I was surprisingly lucky, I limped to my office to call the driver's insurance company and start the claim process. During the call I notice my left ankle swelling more and more, turning blue. The student health center determined that I had no significant bone breaking, mostly soft tissue damage, and eventually an injured tendon. 


Although I know I probably could have sued this woman's insurance company I didn't really have the time and emotional energy to get into a legal battle. So I gave the insurance company my statement expecting at least some sort of minimal recompense besides the medical costs associated with the accident. That was a semi-delusional attitude, as I later learned, moreover, NEVER GIVE AN INSURANCE COMPANY A STATEMENT IF YOU EXPECT THEM TO GIVE YOU A DECENT RECOMPENSE FOR THE SHIT YOU GO THROUGH, OR DESTROYED PROPERTY. First, speak with a lawyer, that is if you are certain you are not at fault. 


The insurance company gave me the run around offering me at the end around $500 for future medical costs, and for my destroyed bike because the frame was older. Little did they know or care was that the frame was a very sturdy 30 year-old frame which I had augmented with newer parts. I had to argue with them and suggested a much higher amount of a few thousand dollars. After hearing my objections they tacked on another couple of hundred dollars which frustrated me, and I started to object to which the agent, replied by insulting me. She insisted, "I know you got in another accident earlier this year and this makes me wonder..." Because I didn't want to hear the bullshit insurance company logic that dictated this incredibly soft-voiced, soprano midwestern woman I suggested that I would seek legal action and then hung up. I was in a rage for hours following that interaction, the notion that I would just liberally ride my bicycle in the way of cars only to wheedle money out of insurance companies had to be the largest deposit of feces I had ever been asked to ingest. Why the fuck, I thought, as a PhD student just recovered from a concussion would I ever risk my brain like that again? For a few hundred bucks? That is insane.


In the end I gave in. I have a prospectus to write, mounds of grading, and at the time a controversial argument to write for a panic inducing bilingual conference. I took the money so that I could eventually get a new bicycle and get on with my life and not endure anymore of the insults leveled at me by this woman, who for a second, almost got me to question my recollection of the collision itself. Fuck insurance companies. 


(Part 2, coming shortly, discusses the uselessness of university administrators in cases like these).

Fuji - Connoisseur

I am seriously considering purchasing this bike. It's chromoly steel, which I value in the rough terrain of Pittsburgh's warped and battered roads. It also beats the Soma "Smoothie" I was thinking about getting in terms of price.

One thing is certain--waiting for the bus and sitting in traffic for an hour once a day is not a pastime I prefer and would be better spent at the pool or reading for my dissertation prospectus.

@ Nashbar, for half regular price.

A car collided with my bicycle and me

Everyone I know who commutes by bicycle long term has had some kind of accident. These accidents might be minor, as in breaking one's finger defending oneself against an opening car door, or, major, as in brain swelling resulting from a collision with a motorcycle. I myself avoided getting hit for my seven years until May 26th, hours before the birthday barbecue I had planned for myself.

I was pressured by my boss to attend a "grading-calibration" with other graduate instructors to discuss how best to mark papers and give appropriate feedback. After a pretty big fight with my boyfriend, I rode with an irritated and distracted mind. I flew down the hill toward the parking garage, entered the garage at an uphill angle, slowing me down significantly. I started making my way back to a point at which I would turn left and then head to my office. But my memory is blank but for the brief moment of the collision, where I see the driver's beige Mazda hit me from the side as I collide with the hood of the car, and then another blank space.

I came to sitting on the curb as a police officer attempted to gather information from me. The collision between my head the pavement had split my helmet, and the front fork of my bicycle was badly dented. I was walking and that was a good sign. Nonetheless an ambulance hustled me to the hospital; all the while making phone calls to see if previously-mentioned boyfriend could meet me at the hospital and alerting my boss that I wouldn't make it to the session. At that point I felt, not so much confused--I felt relatively lucid--but caught up in the ridiculousness of the scenario. I persisted in asking the doctors who stitched me up and the care-providers who cleaned off my wounds questions like, "Is it true that human mouths are ten times dirtier than dog mouths?" I think at that point the whole thing seemed so surreal for me.

After some tests and about twenty minutes of CAT scans it was confirmed that I had escaped with only three deep abrasions on my face and a minor concussion. The doctors decided that I should stay overnight so that they might monitor my concussion. Luckily, the trauma clinic room I inhabited for the night I shared with an older gentleman who had recently undergone surgery for his hernia. This man proceeded to spend all night watching Fox News loudly, tossing and turning in bed, complaining, and demanding room temperature ginger-ale for his ailing stomach. My boyfriend was terribly concerned and kept threatening to get the driver, a Chinese national, deported. But after washing off the blood and stank in my morning hospital shower I was free to go (incidentally, the hospital stay, x-rays, ambulance, etc. totally around $33,000 for those of you who want to argue that market mechanisms keep healthcare costs down).

Returning to find my bike I discovered the frame to be fucked (on consultation with a local shop) apparently it buckled from the collision. Because the frame is aluminum it is useless to repair as any hammering back into shape would produce a weaker frame. Moreover, the police report after much bureaucratic hassle indicates that there were no witnesses and the driver claiming he was driving 10 mph (downhill?!) and I on the other hand was going "quite fast." After discussing the matter with a lawyer he suggested that the case didn't look good precisely because it would be my speculations against the driver's word. This was rather disappointing to me precisely because I am now without my central means of transportation. Moreover, how could I have a concussion from colliding with someone driving 10 mphs? That has to be a lie!

More irritating, perhaps, is the fact that the concussion for about 2 weeks made it difficult to concentrate on anything for more than an hour seriously inhibiting my ability to work on my dissertation.

WEAR A DAMN HELMET! I don't give a fuck if it messes up your coiffure!

Miyata Bicycles

I admit I am not an adept bicycle mechanic but with the help of friends, a book I got from five for the winter holidays last year, and Pittsburgh's FreeRide I've been able to learn a few things that have saved me some money on repairs. Also, my friend Jess and I assembled her miyata bicycle together as well, giving me a pretty decent sense of the process.

So a few years ago I purchased a purple Miyata bicycle frame for which I have only just begun to buy parts for. The confusion of the whole thing, because I want to assemble the bike myself, is what parts actually will fit on a frame that is almost 10 years old (my current ride has a 1960s steel Puegeot frame, which is rather heavy despite all the light parts I've added).

I discovered this blog to help me search for parts. It is a series of scanned catalogues from Miyata bicycles that allow you to see the original parts with which the bicycles were outfitted. Also it supplies the following information, that during WWII Miyata was a gun and ammunition manufacturer in Japan, and afterward converted to a bicycle producer, with some of the tubes on the frame matching the shape and size of former gun designs.