ChiWhoBike #65
I was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer in March, and I was unsure how biking would fit into it, because chemotherapy can take a lot out of you energy-wise. And what I found was that I really wanted to get back on the bike. I had a treatment cycle of every three weeks, and by the second week or so, I felt well enough to bike longer distances. It kept me active, it kept me connected to my community, it kept me being able to go places with my son, when walking was really more difficult than biking, specifically e-biking. And with an electrical assist, you can use that to your advantage when you’re feeling tired. For me it was a huge factor in feeling well, feeling connected and happy. Being able to ride to the lakeshore to read a book by the lake when things were maybe a little hard for me. It was a huge part of my journey, and I really believe that, and I’ve heard it from some of my doctors as well, that it was why I bounced back so quickly from treatment.
A bike bus is a way for kids to get to school by biking in a group. We pick up kids along the route, and have timetables for them to meet us at those corners. And we’ve been growing substantially since we started the bike bus in about 2022. When our kids were in pre-K it was a group of us parents who were just riding together - we showed up at school and a bunch of us had bikes and we were like, ‘that’s so crazy. Maybe we should ride together. Where do you live?’ And so we started biking together, and that was before most of our kids were riding their own bikes. And now we have like 60 people riding with us on Fridays.
People often use examples like medical care for why it’s not reasonable to bike or have infrastructure the way that we do, because somebody needs to get to the hospital. But in my experience, being able to pull up to the front of the door when I felt really sick and weak was much easier for me. There wasn’t this whole experience of where do I park this thing, or the person dropping you off and then meeting up with you. I got to walk in with my family. I got to be able to navigate the space easier.
