cod.peace

As I sit here, high on Vicodin and musing over the oil spill in the Gulf and gasoline usage, I wonder about car free/car lite living and injuries. I drive way too much and would like to work on cutting back. I F'd up my back something fierce last night, hence the Vicodin. I will be able to drive to work (sans narcotics) and work in the office tomorrow, but there's no way on earth I could ride a bike. Or take transit, there simply is none available for that commute.

So here's a practical question: how does one handle sickness/injuries when living a bike/walking-centric lifestyle?

cooker

You would start by going car-light. Don't drive as often, take the bike as much as you can, but keep the car for stuff that you need it for and for emergencies. Over time you may learn some tricks or techniques that make you less reliant on the car, or you may decide to move somewhere that works better for a car free lifestyle, for example where there is public transit that can serve as your backup.

Dahon.Steve

I think you're on the wrong forum. The best answer to your circumstance would be to buy an electric bicycle. A heavy duty one with an expensive battery that allows you to ride without using any effort. Visit the "Electric Bicycle" forum and they should give you names to good companies.

gerv 

I've run into someone recently who bought an electric bike to build up his strength after a major operation.

Myself, I was recently laid up over a full weekend with a back so bad, I couldn't ride either the car or the bike. Oddly, I took a bunch of aspirin over that weekend and I was fine to ride to work on Monday. The funny thing is that my back still hurts... but only when I'm sitting in a soft deep chair or in a car. I seem to be able to handle sitting up straight at my desk or riding to work...

prathmann

I had similar back problems years ago that kept me from driving to work due to severe pain but I was still able to bicycle in. At work I could alternate between sitting and standing depending on how my back felt, but the enforced sitting while driving resulted in very painful spasms. I felt ok in the bent forward position on my bike.

B. Carfree

I also had this happen many decades ago. When I discovered yoga in the '70s (back in FREE community college) my back (and knee, and ankle) problems went away. It turned out that I needed to keep my quads a bit more stretched out than I was. I could have saved a lot of pain if I would have learned about that in high school.

cod.peace

This is more of a philosophical question, not a "how can I bike with a nuked lower back" question

Artkansas 

This seems to come from the "one-size fits all car" mode of thinking.

If you are sick, then you probably won't feel like riding much and should stay home, and buses, trains or taxis may be the better way to get around.

Injuries, it depends on what you injured.

The last bad injury that I had that affected bicycling was that I slipped sideways off my recumbent trying to start on a steep hill and really hurt my left hip. Well, I was in the middle of riding a century when I did it, so I limped to the top of the hill, and tried riding once I was on the level again. The nearest help was the sag stop several miles on.

By the time I got there, the pain had eased a bit. So I did the other 60 miles of the century and found that while I could ride, raising my leg to get off the bike was another question.

After that, it was 6 months before I could even sit on the recumbent and pedal it for any distance without major pain. However, it didn't hurt at all to ride my Hard Rock. And I used walking more to get the hip back into shape.

And two years later, the hip still smarts, though I can comfortably ride both bikes.

When I was in college, I smashed up my knee attempting to ride my bike under a fallen tree that I didn't see. It was the rest of the quarter before the knee was healed. I just rode my bike very gingerly and accepted the reduced speed.

Newspaperguy

Depending on where you live, you have a number of ways of getting around: Walking, cycling, skateboard, transit, taxi, carpooling, personal car and probably a few I haven't considered. Not all these options are available in all communities. Some don't have transit. Some don't have taxis either.

The original poster's situation is a great argument for going car-light or for taking advantage of a car sharing program or cheap rentals if they exist there. Taxi, of course, is a possibility, but it gets expensive in a hurry.

wahoonc

I have really been looking at the possibility of adding an electric type cargo bike to the fleet for instances when you don't feel like riding or have to cover longer than average distances. I think they are going to be the wave of the future for people that live in many towns when gas goes ballistic again.

Aaron

cyclokitty 

Luckily all of my injuries have been very mild. Most of the pain was of the strained, tight muscle variety the next day that required slow walking to the kitchen for Advil and coffee, then some light stretching before getting on my bike.

If I couldn't ride then I'd take public transit since I don't have a car. If I was too sick or injured to get on a bus or train, then I'd stay home.

I guess if I was really sick or injured and had to visit the doctor and couldn't handle public transit, I suppose there is a taxi.

Roody

I had the mother of all bike injuries 5 years ago that, after 2 surgeries on my wrist and a total of 10 months off work, again limits my cycling ability. So now I ride as much as I can, I walk, I take the bus a lot, I take a cab if it's late at night. I even get car rides with friends and relatives once in a while.

You want a philosophical answer? Stay smart, stay adaptable and stay active. Always work toward a goal of using your human power to get around more each day. When your body is weak you compensate by making your brain stronger. Research and learn what you need to do to rehabilitate your body, and never give up.

juliansparrow

Hey cod.peace, your situation might be similar to mine so maybe my telling you about what I do shall give you somewhere to start. Though for various reasons while it might be similar what has worked for me might not work for you at all. Depending upon what sort of injury you have, a car-free lifestyle might be attainable.

First off, I am a disabled car-free individual. I shall tell you the following only for context and do not want anyone who reads this to give me their sympathy! My injury happened four years ago and gave me two bulging discs in my lower spine with radiating sciatica and loss of sensation down my left leg. I also have nearly complete numbness in my left foot which results in a near inability to feel three of my toes and one-fourth of my foot. On a scale of 1 to 10, my pain level hovers around the 6-7-8 range regularly though I have good days whereby the pain is around the 4-5 range. I've been on the most powerful vicodin since the accident and will probably continue to be on it for the foreseeable future. I have a hard time walking, sitting, and standing for long periods and can't bend, stoop or lift more than 10 lbs regularly. When I do have to lift 30 lbs I can only do so once or twice that particular day for to lift 30 lbs three times in a given day is too much.

When I was hurt I already had a light chromoly steel framed bicycle weighing about 22 lbs and I can't stress enough how important a light bike is when one has a back injury! Since then the frame broke and I was lucky enough to have a friend who sold me his 17 lbs on the cheap. Due to the nature of my injury I can ride a road bike easily and doing so actually reduces the pain I typically experience which is a godsend. Since getting hurt I've experimented with different riding positions and found riding up on the drop-bar to be best for me and have changed my break set up to best serve that riding position by adding a cyclocross lever and changing the old suicide-levers for modern, lightly springed, aero-style levers which need only my index and middle finger to break adequately. I can barely walk 10 city sized blocks but I can ride a bike for 30 miles with no stops.

In addition to my road bike I have a bicycle specifically outfitted for heavy lifting needs. It's a an old fat tired cruiser with a front and back luggage rack with four folding side baskets which aids in getting groceries, gardening supplies (once I had 75 lbs worth of soil & compost, planters, a small tree, and many herbs/ fruit plants piled on it and got home safely with it all in one trip! A friend helped load and unload.), and has a screw mounted quick release that was designed for a car's bike rack to allow an option for towing any of my bikes to a bike shop when riding them is not an option. One need only to place the fork of the bike that shall be towed on the mount and go!

Then, I have a messenger bag which distributed weight equally along my back by expanding outwards. In my opinion it's far better for me than a standard backpack which tends to unequally distribute weight at the bottom.

How far do you need to travel for work? In your opinion, what is keeping you from riding when your back is in this condition? I don't mean to be antagonistic by that last question, just trying to get a better picture of your context. If you have any questions for me feel free to ask them either here or via private message. I hope I can help in some way

Torrilin

I've got some serious arthritis issues due to bone deformities. I also have issues with debilitating menstrual pain (currently under treatment, but...). For a variety of reasons, we depend on me to be the primary person in charge of groceries, errands, library runs, you name it, I've probably hauled it. So we just don't accept a living situation where I cannot handle day to day chores, even if I'm nearly incapacitated by pain.

For me that means I need to be able to walk to get groceries and medical supplies. At our old place in LA, there were three stores within about a two block radius that would cover food, and if I walked an additional block, I'd get to a pharmacy. Here, I can get basic OTC drugs and food within a block. A lot of our prescriptions just come straight out of our clinic's pharmacy, but the clinic doesn't always have a great selection of first aid stuff. The clinic is across the street. In both LA and Madison, I had to walk about a block to hit a bus line that would let me access a bunch of other services.

The exact right solution is going to depend on your personal situation. We're pretty rigid about our minimum level of services, but we have to be. I can do a lot more than the average able-bodied person, but I am disabled. Pretending I'm not disabled is a great way to end up flat on my back, stuffed full of drugs and getting an extra 5+ hours a day of napping.

sauerwald

I think that living car free or car light involves more than just not driving a car. When my wife and I decided to simplify, we moved to a much smaller house, which was located close to transit, and walking distance to many places (I can walk to get groceries, see my Dr., Dentist, restaurants, etc). Last week I was injured, and cannot ride my bike. I have been taking transit in to work this week - our one car has remained in the driveway.

tsl

A year ago when I was hit by a car, I had my sister-in-law drive me to the doc's for the post-crash evaluation. I knew she'd have a fit if she found out I didn't call her for that kind of help.

Then for the next week I took the bus everywhere--to the hospital for x-rays, HR to drop off doctor's reports, the LBS to see about my bike, and all the other routine errands of life. The driver's insurance paid for the monthly bus pass. It's part of the reason I look for apartments on the bus line. All city libraries are on bus lines too, so I can always get to work by bus if I need to. (It also seems that the nicer apartment buildings are on bus lines.)

Once I was cleared to ride again, I felt very vulnerable. It wasn't that I was afraid to getting hit again, but rather, I had only one bike until my other one was repaired. Since I owned only two bikes, I had no back-up. Of course I contributed to the repair delay by chipping in some money to replace the bent-up steel fork with a custom-fabricated carbon one. Took eight weeks for them to make and ship it, but it was worth the wait.