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Cycling has a weight problem: a call for the industry to be more transparent about its weight limits
(www.cyclingweekly.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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"Fatphobic" (because that's what we call social health consciousness these days) rant incoming:
It's been an issue for a while across all facets of life now and no one is brave enough to be the first voice to say "hey, these things literally were not made to support people as heavy as you." In the past year, a horseback riding trail in my hometown had to close because there were not enough customers whose weight didn't pose a serious risk of injuring the horses. A few years ago I had to install a steel support beam in the crawlspace under the master bedroom of a morbidly obese couple. Together, they probably pushed a half a ton and spent easily 16 hours a day on that bed. The framing had become so sunken that you could see the subflooring through the gaps that appeared between the flooring.
Just the other week my roommate invited an old school friend over, the guy probably weighed about 300lbs at 5'8" and broke a stool (Lyra by Magis, very nice, one of my favorites) in my kitchen. How anyone can be that big and so unaware of the strain their weight is putting on the things underneath them is beyond me.
But bigger people deserve to be able to bike too! It’s just the reality of the world we live in, plus many people have genetic issues that make it fairly difficult to lose weight. They shouldn’t be locked out of basic things like being able to survive without a car. I admit horses are a different story because they’re live animals, but bicycles are human-made and can and should be designed to handle more weight, especially with how many people are bigger.
I agree with most of what you said but not It’s just the reality of the world we live in, plus many people have genetic issues that make it fairly difficult to lose weight.
It’s not just the reality of the world we live in. People were not this fat 30 years ago, let alone 50 or 100 years. And it is something we can change, if we cared to.
“Genetic issues” are too much of a crutch or a lame excuse. Yes that makes it more difficult, but it doesn’t make it impossible or justify not trying to get to a more reasonable weight.
But there absolutely should exist a segment of bicycles for almost every range of weights.
I never thought about this until it happened to me, but a lot of medications can cause significant weight gain. I used to weigh 110lbs for a good chunk of my existence and was very fit.
I experienced a mental health crisis and the antidepressants made me gain around 60lbs. Don't ask me how, I'm not a doctor. But to go from being very thin to overweight was kinda disturbing...just ballooning up like that. Also...the constipation was the worse I've ever experienced. I could eat salads all day(and did) and my shit was still rock hard.
I've since quit taking them due to side effects killing my quality of life and the weight is slowly coming off...but it's like my whole metabolism is fucked forever now. (I'm doing much better mentally, I was in a bad situation, and leaving it helped immensely)
There are people who need those meds to function, and A LOT of people take them. Probably a contributing factor as to why there's more large people now. Either accept the weight gain and be mentally healthier, or have more mental health problems with no weight gain. Thats a hell of a choice.
Hopefully newer meds are being developed that don't have those side effects.
Salad is high fiber, it's going to make your shit hard.
Dude, it didn't matter how much water I drank, or how much fiber(Dr's advice was to eat salads and high fiber food) I couldn't shit. Laxatives didn't even help. Never had that issue before or after i stopped taking those meds. It was fucking awful.
Also, without medications messing up my digestive system, salads usually make me poop. Not diarrhea or anything, just...kinda moves things along if you will.
Maybe your body reacts differently? Bodies are weird as fuck like that.
I had some issues with retention and changing diet to high fiber made it worse... so yeah bodies are weird like that.