Riding across America on indoor stationary bicycles?

Yep, that's right! From our cycling studio in the APEX Recreation Center in Arvada, Colorado, we're pedaling our indoor stationary bikes on a journey across America.  But there's more to it than having a good imagination.

We all have Parkinson's disease and it's been demonstrated that riding a stationary bicycle at high RPM for about an hour actually relieves some of our symptoms, as much as 35%.  It's called Forced Exercise and we ride 3-days a week for nearly an hour each time.  As a bonus, this kind of high intensity exercise helps keep us in shape.  As we age and in addition to the struggles of Parkinson's, being in better shape can help us mitigate those challenges we'll likely face - pneumonia, injuries from falling, and who knows what.

Our Stationary Bikes

It's called Pedaling for Parkinson's and you can learn more about the therapy at www.pedalingforparkinsons.org.  In a nutshell, the benefits of cycling was discovered somewhat by accident when Dr Jay Alberts of the Cleveland Clinic was riding across Iowa in the RAGBRAI.

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Having noticed the passenger on his tandem was nearly symptom free after a few days riding led Dr Alberts to the lab where he discovered the relationship between cycling and symptomatic relief.  Keep in mind, this is real science and if you want the details, visit the web page to find the published results of the clinical research. 

Now, back to this virtual trip across the US of A.  Riding a stationary bike for an hour at a time isn't the most exciting thing in the world.  And it's certainly not very comfortable.  So, we look for things to do to pass the time and the thought of going somewhere emerged as we imagined riding in a peloton or up a mountain pass. 

Thus, the journey began on Monday, August 25, 2019.  We left Eureka California and headed east.  This blog accounts for our travels as if we were riding as a group and for each day until we reach the Atlantic Ocean. 

Come along.