About 8 weeks ago I hurt my ankle whilst merely spectating at the RedBull HardLine race in Wales, can you believe it? Not even riding! So, after hobbling down a welsh hillside I ended up with massive pain and swelling, and so went to the hospital only to be told I had somehow damaged ligaments. Don’t let anyone tell you that hill-walking is a safe sport!
Recovery has been slow and the swelling would flare up again after short walks, so this has kept me off the Haibike, which really sucks. At week 6 of the recovery, I decided to throw caution to the wind and jump on my Xduro ALLMTN 3.0 and go for a steady ride, I quickly found that when I had any twinges of pain I could use the power level of the bike to compensate by shifting up through the assistance modes and back it off down to lower levels when I didn’t need to. Amazingly I managed a good 20 miles of steady terrain, no way this would happen on a regular bike, in fact it’s likely I would have done more damage than good at that stage. I’ve since been out several more times even though I’m not out of the woods yet and getting there slowly.
At the same time, this was all happening a received a message from a fellow member of a Facebook eBike group which I would like to share:
“Hello Dave, I just read your article on the Haibike blog regarding fitness. I am 67 and 5 years ago developed a quite rare autoimmune condition called Vasculitis, specifically Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA). This involves inflammation of small and medium blood vessels due to my own immune system attacking them. In my case, it presented first by attacking my kidneys. This was brought under control by chemo followed by ongoing medication to suppress my immune system. In my case, I get flares periodically which attack my joints with stiffening and pain. Hence my message. I wanted to improve my fitness and decided cycle riding would suit me. I started with a standard bike and it triggered a flare. Since then I bought a Haibike Sduro Trekking 3.0 (also one for my wife). We absolutely love them, and I have had no issues since. With the sophisticated display and controls, I am able to adjust to all conditions, gradients, headwinds etc to ensure I maintain a manageable stress level on my joints and since have had no flares or joint pain. Nevertheless, I have absolutely no doubt that my fitness has been substantially improved. We have a motorhome and on our last outing we went to the lakes staying near Coniston and we did a ride up the side of the lake, up Hawkeshead Hill, down through Hawkshead, up towards Grizedale, off into the forest tracks, looped around to Grizedale then on down to the bottom of Coniston Water, then up west side back to Coniston. I guess around 25 miles of challenging gradients with no ill effects and so enjoyable. I cannot believe that I am now able to do this. Just thought you may be interested in this angle of the fitness and benefits e-bikes can offer and perhaps to promote those benefits to others who may have such issues that e-bikes can be a great benefit.”
- Regards, Martin Bailey
I would like to thank Martin for his message and wish him all the very best with his recovery and many happy eBike miles on behalf of the team at Haibike.
So, there are so many potential areas in which an ebike can help, I know for sure that having one has certainly helped me.
Over and out (riding).
Dave Miller
