I have written About this before. So has Sam, multiple times, all the way back to 2018. Our focus was on bikes more generally and how they can help with disabilities, but three years ago I predicted an e-bike would be in my future. It was and I love it.
However, it was out of service for nearly a year with some sort of electrical issue. I hadn’t worried about it over the winter. But then I had to take it to Toronto for repair, only getting it back when my son brought it with him for Thanksgiving,
Meanwhile, my knees have been sufficiently sore that I didn’t feel like biking much this year. Plus I’m still nervous about biking too hard or too long with my heart murmur. And I have needed my car much more because I combine work with errands involving hauling stuff, or visiting my mom who lives almost 30 km away.
Getting the e-bike back felt like a gift, especially when two swimming friends invited me for a little ride. One cycles everywhere and the other does triathlons. Did I mention I have barely ridden in a year?
I didn’t have to worry about keeping up or overdoing it; the little boost from my battery was just enough.
Me with my e-bike, along with Florence and Sumiko, enjoying a glorious late afternoon near the Ottawa River.
We rode for a little over 20 kilometres, with frequent stops to admire the views on both sides of the Ottawa and Gatineau rivers. And of course there was ice cream.
Me in a bright blue shirt, enjoying an ice cream cone It was a locally-made green apple flavour.
I have done adult ballet for 20 years now. I did belly dance for an extended period following an injury; and would still be taking classes if I could find one relatively local that fits my schedule. A couple of years ago, I took up jazz.
I only dance a few hours a week, so I don’t wear out my ballet slippers very quickly. My daughter said you weren’t a real dancer until you had bled into your shoes. That kind of misery and lost toenails are not for me. I never intend to dance en pointe, so I am perfectly content to call myself a dancer despite only wearing through the toes on my slippers.
I wore ballet shoes while doing belly dance as I wasn’t keen on bare feet at the local community centre. The same ballet shoes served me well for two years of jazz, but I confess to looking enviously at the jazz shoes others were wearing.
Dance classes are finally starting this week, so I indulged myself in a pair of jazz shoes. It doesn’t matter that I have only one one-hour jazz class each week. I now own two pairs of shoes for two different disciplines.
My new black jazz shoes alongside my pink ballet slippers. I’m secretly excited that my ballet slippers are showing enough wear that I may to replace them some time this year.
I know I’m a dancer even though I don’t fit the stereotype of skinny teenager with big dreams and a tutu. I usually wear leggings and a T-shirt instead of a leotard and tights. I sewed a character skirt more for my own amusement than for actual classes. But different shoes for different kinds of dance? That makes me feel like a “real” dancer.
I live with a feminist partner. We split things up based on what we enjoy doing and the rest we negotiate.
Michel is great at remembering to wipe down our bikes on the regular, oil our chains, clean gears. The ongoing preventative maintenance.
I, on the other hand, tend to do the bike part acquiring, dropping off bikes to the shop and some parts replacement. I’m deliberately focusing on growing my bike mechanic skills. It helps me feel independent and resilient on the road as well as provide better Support And Gear (SAG) wagon at events.
Michel’s old Motobecane. It’s seen a lot of distance but has lots to offer so it is on a mechanic’s stand in front of a plethora of bicycles and parts.
Since Michel has a new ride I’m fixing up his last bike to give to a young rider we know. The Silver Surfer is a titanium frame and will give its new owner many miles and smiles.
I have taken it twice to the Women Trans Femme (WTF) bike repair workshop at the Squeaky Wheel co-op and always learn lots about my bike and what other riders are needing to learn.
I also took my commuter bike, Myrna, in for her 100 km tune up at The London Bicycle Café. The cables had stretched and the mechanic just glanced at the rear wheel assembly and gave a quick twist of the little uh nut? On the cable next to the shifter.
“That should do it.”
I asked if he just eyeballed it. He laughed. Turns out there are little paint marks on the back assembly to show where the derailer limits should be.
Michel’s new bike needed seasonal maintenance as well as new tires, sealant (he runs tubeless, a new chain and cassette. He does a lot of distance so this is not unexpected.
Now we are all set to ride. I would like to see it a bit warmer. This spring has been chilly but perfect for getting maintenance done!
It’s been a long, cold winter, and I work a few days a week from home, so I’m inside at my desk a lot right now. When a friend told me she uses a Cubii whenever she works at her desk I went online to see about it (as one does).
The Cubii is one of many (many) under-desk elliptical and cycling trainers, ranging from about $150-$450 (if you don’t count the high-end ones). They claim to be small, silent, and easy enough to be peddled for exercise while one sits doing office work. The Cubii looks simple and convenient, though if I bought one it might join all of my other doo-dads I have bought over the years for simple and convenient exercise…now gathering dust.
Pedal trainers join many (many) other devices that are sold for exercise at one’s desk: isometric standing devices, standing desk mats with ridges for stretching, disc wobble cushions, gyro balls, and smart water bottles. I remember when at one time there was only the stabilizer ball that you sat on instead of a chair. Now you can buy an entire work station that doubles as exercise machinery.
Various people sitting on exercise balls at desks, a google image search
Awhile ago I read an article by Eryk Salvaggio (2024), “Challenging the Myths of Generative AI”, that has stuck with me. The piece focuses on how, based on misunderstandings about how AI works, certain myths are shaping how we justify AI’s importance and reshaping how we think about ourselves and what we do.
For example, AI is widely regarded as useful because it is understood to save time. (Frequent users know this may not be true depending on how complex the task, how good one’s prompting skills are, and how critical one is about the output). The productivity myth underlying this valuation is the automation of work. If is AI is good because it saves time, then automating more of our work with AI is good because it will save more time. In this AI-infused workflow cycle, where saving time with AI is better than working without it, the automation of work itself becomes the preferred norm.
Put another way, has anyone encouraged using AI to help complete a task more slowly because that task is worth spending time on?
I just spent a bunch of time explaining that idea (thanks for sticking with me) because the productivity myth may take a related form in the world of desk exercise equipment. This equipment is sold as a healthy remedy for the harms of sedentary office work, but it also produces a new idea that exercising while working is good. We save time because we are doing both at once, but in doing so our relationships to work and exercise change.
In “optimizing” work time also as exercise time (or using exercise time to work) then neither work nor exercise needs to be (should be?) the single focus of our time. Whether we are effective working while exercising, or exercising in safe form or duration while working, is beside the point.
Of course, no one lives in this purely either/or world: you can use your Cubii at your desk and still go curling later in the day. And, not every minute of our work day is likely to suffer if we were to divide our attention with light exercise once in awhilr. For fidgety people like myself, physical activity of some sort might indeed promote increased focus during certain tasks.
Furthermore, if you want to exercise at work, you can certainly avoid commodifying it by passing on the costly exercise equipment and opting for brief stretching or body weight exercises. Most importantly, I am certainly not refusing the vast evidence that prolonged seated work is bad for one’s health.
But…in reviewing many review pages of Cubiis (and their first and second cousins) I began reflecting on how serving the myth of productivity means we may be more more likely to buy things that will help us to squeeze more out of our time without questioning the squeezing. When it is always better to optimize by going faster or doing two things at once, we may start to care less about what we are actually doing than how long it takes us to get to the next thing.
My beloved has been offering to get me a smart watch for years. I wasn’t that interested in chasing metrics. I was happy with using my phone to count steps and Strava for cycling.
That changed for me as my fiftieth birthday approached last October.
I was thinking a lot about the cardiac monitoring smart watches can do. I know what a benefit that can be. I was thinking a lot about Hal Johnson sharing his story of how his smart watch prompted him to go to the hospital.
So I agreed to get an Apple Watch. After 3 months of wearing it here is my assessment.
Heart stuff good
The monitoring of my heart rate is very helpful. I get lots of data on my resting heart rate, what is going on during workouts and how quickly I recover from workouts.
I was surprised that my resting heart rate, as I go about my day, is 64 bpm. I was delighted that my sleeping heart rate regularly drops into the 40s.
I appreciate that 3 minutes after stopping an activity my heart rate drops 40 bpm. Nice!
Mildly annoyed by rings
I’m not getting the ring thing. I either nail a metric or hilariously undershoot and the watch prompts are silly. It tells me to stand when I’m falling asleep! Yes. I’ve messed with all of the settings but it still occasionally does it.
I stand up a lot so dialing in the blue ring to 14 seems reasonable. I’m trying to get 8 hours of sleep after all.
The active energy red ring set itself to 1,000 calories. That felt a bit ambitious as the data from my phone had me averaging 450 cal.
The watch captures more movement as “active” so that alone saw a near doubling of counted movement. I’m trying to find the sweet spot of a goal that requires mindful movement without making it unattainable. I’ve been stepping it down and have now settled on 700 cal.
Nat’s December bar graph of active energy, workouts and standing. While her monthly average is hitting those goals she is not seeing consistent meeting the metric on a daily basis.
I’m ambivalent about these measures. They are front and centre and I can’t pick what the rings represent.
I’d rather steps than active energy. I’d rather sleep than a stand goal. I don’t care about what the rings measure so I don’t find them motivating.
Important insights
I’m loving having respiratory information as well as heart rate and sleep data.
I’m not as consistent as I thought for walking, workouts or sleeping.
This information is helping me make different choices.
I’m also appreciating that my watch shares my activities on Strava, where many fit friends hang out.
So, yes, I’m late to the smart watch game. Yes, I’m happy with it. I would like more control over what data is centered.
Gift giving can be a process fraught with uncertainty. Many of us admit failure and dole out cash or gift cards out of fear of disappointing our friends, family and coworkers. This is why we at Fit is a Feminist Issue are here to offer you our version of the seasonal gift list. Our mission is to wade into the deep-end of the internet shopping pool, so that you don’t have to.
In keeping with our general theme of feminist wellness and activity swag, here are a few items that caught our notice, with varied price points.
Does anyone on your list already have an ice roller? I doubt it. There are lots of ice rollers to choose from, in many shapes and sizes. Each one comes with detailed instructions. I’ll say this for them: they’re cheap (the one below retails for $8.99 USD) On the other hand, a DIY ice cube is cheaper. But who am I to judge? Take a look for yourselves.
A pink plastic thingie with a cold cylindrical thingie attached to it.The science of ice rolling– an exercise for the viewer.Roller head use instructions– freeze it, attach to plastic thingie, roll it wheverer.Glad to read it’s multifunctional. Confused to see human calves referred to as “shank”.
If you love love love the concept of the ice roller, but are looking for something a bit more upscale, theres a set of Cryo Sticks that retails for $134. Yes, they’re a bit pricey. But in return for all that cash you’re laying out, they have clearly employed someone who spent one semester as a physics major to write their marketing copy. To wit:
Made of stainless steel, Biologique Recherche Cryo Sticks work as conductors, storing thermal energy. By storing the Cryo Sticks in ice or the refrigerator and applying them to the skin, the cold energy is transferred to the skin.
Yep, thermodynamics in action.
A pair of Cryo Sticks, shaped like juggling clubs but made (allegedly) of stainless steel, with handles. Also there’s a small inset of a person placing the cryo sticks over their eyes. Unclear if anything good is happening.
Continuing in the ersatz recovery gift category, have you considered compression boots for recovery after exercise for that special someone? Here is a pair from the fine folks at Normatec, on sale for $699 USD.
Normatec 3 air compression boots, remote-controlled (obvs).Close-up of the sexiest remote control ever for air-compression boots. In black (obvs).
Hmmm. What are these things for, exactly? And do they actually work? Here’s what Normatec has to say:
The idea behind compression boots is to facilitate flow of fluids through the legs to reduce swelling and after-workout soreness… One 2014 study … concluded that these devices are promising at accelerating and enhancing recovery following a rigorous training program.
However, other studies suspect that these devices might be .. [a] placebo. For example, a 2022 literature review found that compression had little effect on delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and a 2021 study found that they may provide short-term… but not continued relief from muscle damage.
If you have expendable income and want a passive recovery tool that you can wear while you wind down in the evening, compression boots do offer a lot of benefits… But there are also much cheaper ways to drive out swelling, like active recovery. “You know what also drives out swelling?” Longworth says, “Muscles contracting. Movement.”
Yeah, ’nuff said.
Sometimes it’s easier to go practical on gift-giving. And what’s more practical for your ball-sports-playing besties than gear, plain and simple. But sometimes plain and simple just won’t do. In which case, check out these tempting offerings:
Prada tennis ball case— with a can of Prada tennis balls (included, I think) for $480 (*cough, sputter, cough*)
A black (obvs) nylon tubular bag, designed to hold a black (obvs) tennis ball container. By Prada.
You can also get a Prada basketball (with its own harness carrier) for $925 USD or a splurge on a Prada volleyball (same harness setup) for $1200 USD (I wasn’t brave enough to do the calculation for cost in Canadian dollars).
Prada basketball in black (obvs) with a little black harness.Multicolored Prada volleyball (Colors! Eek!) with its own little black harness, presumably to take it on walks.
I know– as appealing as these high-end accessories are, sometimes a basic and low-cost gift is better all around. Lululemon has just the thing: the (small) towel, for $18.
It’s a (small) towel. And what is adaptive pink? Why did they make this? Because their profit margin would be huuuuge.
Not that there’s anything wrong with (small) towels, but 1) it is very likely that your proposed giftee already has a bunch of (small to medium) towels hanging around; and 2) if you want to buy them a new hand towell, this one from Land’s End looks much nicer, is on sale for $8.97 and comes in many colors, including a non-adaptive pink shade.
Holiday shopping is hard. So I hope this gift guide will be useful, at least inasmuch as you know what to avoid. Honestly, if you’re stuck for what to buy, I think a pretty scarf is always welcome.
I had been thinking about going to The Squeaky Wheel Bicycle co-op’s WTF repair clinic for a very long time.
I also wanted to take my youngest kid and her partner so they could learn some bicycle maintenance skills.
Oh. Right. First off I should explain what “WTF” stands for!
The poster for the October 27 women, trans, femme bike repair workshop.
Turns out my physiotherapist is a cyclist and highly skilled mechanic. We were chatting about inclusive cycling and they recommended I go.
So. I messed up my registration by somehow finding outdated registration instructions. I have a gift.
Jean, Jerica and I showed up with 3 bicycles in various states of needing love.
The volunteers were welcoming and gracious despite my mix up with registration.
We put Jean’s bike on the stand. Her disc brake was sticking and I had no idea where to start. A quick evaluation and our mechanic mentor showed us that it was simply the cable was not seated properly at the lever. Easy!
Second bike was my road bike, Ethyl, I had been mean to my derailer…again. So we went through how to evaluate the range and alignment. I also learned the names of the screws and their functions. After 10 minutes Ethyl was shifting like a dream.
Finally, I had a bike I want to fix up and gift to a friend. The crank where the pedal screws in was stripped. We did an overall evaluation of the bike. It also needs a new chain and brake pads. Totally things I can do myself.
I had a great afternoon learning more about bicycle maintenance. There were other folks working on bikes and I learned from them too.
I really appreciated having a space to try something and become a bit more autonomous with my bike repair skills.
I will definitely be back to gain more skills and confidence to go beyond replacing an inner tube and keeping my chain clean to actually repairing things.
Surgery was Monday, August 29th. It was supposed to be day surgery but my blood pressure wasn’t fond of the spinal so I kept flunking the physio exam to leave hospital. Each time I stood up my blood pressure sank drastically and I had to sit back down. That was frustrating, especially since the surgery itself went well, but I was happy to see they were obviously okay keeping you if you’re not well enough to leave. Yes, here in Ontario our hospitals are stressed but I felt very well cared for. The nurses and physios and the whole surgical team were lovely.
Day 2 Home!
Tuesday’s big adventure was making it from London to Guelph. Getting in and out of the car was the biggest challenge. I was happy to be home and settled into our ground floor back room with the fold out sofa. Usually it’s our Zwifting studio but no one is Zwifting right now. We have a main floor washroom and so I was saved the need to handle the stairs with crutches until I was a little bit more stable. For the first few days I relied upon a walker.
Today's achievement was Sarah going into work today and me making out onto the back deck solo. Thanks to my mum for lunch. Hard to imagine doing this living alone. pic.twitter.com/KBo83dLuK0
Day 6 post knee replacement surgery my knee has a knee like shape again. Thanks to all the icing and elevation it's no longer just a giant swollen blob. Also, I'm loving our back deck. pic.twitter.com/vKpnQmErUe
Also on day 6 I made it upstairs and slept in my own bed. Bonus!
Day 7
OMG Sarah installed a new handheld shower attachment and I successfully showered. The world is a better place today.
Surgical staples get removed and I have a follow up visit with the surgeon on the 15th. That’s the point at which I can ask about getting back on the bike on the trainer and maybe getting back to the gym for some gentle workouts.
Here are some of my thoughts so far about the recovery process:
It helps to have a team. Between keeping track of all the medication–pain drugs yes but also antibiotics and blood thinners and anti inflammatory drugs–and running out for ice for the ice machine, it’s a lot. Thanks Sarah, thanks mum, thanks Jeff. I can’t imagine going through this alone.
Functional fitness matters. I only needed the walker for the first couple of days and I’m pretty stable on my feet now even without the crutches. I’m using them for walking to help the joint but I feel pretty strong. The new knee is “weight bearing as tolerated” as they say. It helps too that I’ve got some upper body strength and reasonable mobility. All of a sudden when you’re trying to lower yourself into the toilet seat with one leg doing all the work and the other sticking out because it doesn’t yet bend, pistol squats start to make sense. We bought one of the raised toilet seats with handles but I really only needed it for the first couple of days. It’s packed away now.
Pain management is a thing. Part of me worries about pain meds and addiction. I also like feeling like myself. But knee surgery isn’t a time to try to soldier through. You need to keep moving and do the physio and to do that you need to keep the pain under control. There’s always some pain but I’ve been told to try not to let it get too far above 5/10. I’ve been using the heavy duty pain meds at night for sleep and before and after physio.
Physio, physio, physio. Recovery from knee surgery is a full-time job. I’m off work for at least six weeks and part of me wondered why. I could work from home and make my meetings virtual meetings. One reason is of course pain medication and judgement. There’s also time constraints. If you’re doing physio two to three times a day and you need to prepare for physio and recover after, there isn’t a lot of time to do other things.
This is also going to take a lot of patience. It’s tough work and I know it can feel like slow going. Wish me luck!
Good leg good to heaven, bad leg goes to hell. Crutches advice for the stairs.
Happy to answer any questions anyone has about my surgery experience. Ask away!
I love a good set of prompts. I have dice, cards, apps, and prompt sheets for writing, improv, storytelling, drawing, and all kinds of creative activities.
Prompts help me to avoid getting stuck in decision mode (a huge pitfall for my ADHD brain), and they offer just the sort of constraint that helps creativity to thrive.
Since I also have a bit of a decision challenge with exercise (trying to strike a balance between consistency and avoiding boredom makes for a tricky endeavour a lot of the time) I was intrigued when the all-knowing algorithm served up this set of exercise prompt dice on Monday afternoon.
Image description: Amazon product photo for Wadeo exercise dice. In the upper left the dice are displayed in a black mesh bag, on the upper right is a white paper instruction manual, and across the bottom are four dice (yellow, green, blue, teal) with various exercises printed on them.
I usually have to decide things in advance – knowing the what and the when and the timeframe helps remove the ‘Ugh, I will be doing this for the REST OF MY LIFE, I don’t even want to start.’ feeling that my brain automatically generates. But, when I use prompts, I usually only have to decide when and how long. (I guess the prompts only offer a certain range of ‘what’ so my brain is ok with that.)
I couldn’t help but wonder whether my brain would be ok with choosing a time and the length of my exercise session but leaving the exercises themselves up to the dice.
Then I looked closer at these particular dice.
I won’t do burpees. I know they are a great exercise but they make my head spin so I already know I won’t do them.
I’m not quite ready for pistol squats or ‘jackknifes’ so I would need to adjust or substitute something else for those…
And I don’t even know what is on the other side of those dice. There could be far worse things in store for me.
So I won’t be ordering those.
BUT
I am still intrigued by the IDEA of exercise dice.
And I just so happen to have a set of wooden cubes like these…
Image description: a photo of a pile of about 20 plain, unfinished wooden cubes on a white background.
So, I am going to create my own exercise dice.
And this will probably work better for me because instead of having to roll one die over and over, I could roll a whole set of exercises at a time and have a very clear end point for my set or for my session.
Now I just have to decide what exercises to write on each die.
I have blogged previously about group exercise adventures–winter hikes, fun runs, wall climbs, etc.–so it was only a matter of time until we ended up at an aerial adventure park. Set at a western Ontario ski hill forest, this treetop adventure has courses of increasing height and challenge in which participants climb ladders, cross wood and net bridges, and zip line from tree platform to platform.
Through some Wikipedia surfing I learned that aerial adventure courses were borne from military training-style ropes courses and alternative adventure education. However, most of today’s adventure parks are touristy fun that Wikipedia describes as requiring “neither climbing techniques nor special/specific physical fitness experience.”
Judging by our next-day muscle soreness and little bruises, there is at least some physical fitness required. But more than exercise, it was thrilling to hop across wobbly bridges, and stand high in the trees without falling out of them. The course didn’t require teamwork to complete obstacles, but we encouraged and cheered each other a lot.
Among my GoPro pictures, I found one of my handheld carabiners that the trainer had described as “our hands” while we were out on the course. This meant that we were to latch one or both carabiners onto within-reach “lifeline” cables throughout the entire course.
Self-belay system with carabiners and zipline attachment.
Using a self-belay system in a tree top adventure was a little scary because we were responsible for our own safety. We received some initial supervised practice on a training course, but in the park it was up to us to keep ourselves attached to the steel cables.
Looking at the photo afterwards, I realized that being responsible for my own safety had given my mind something to pay attention to in the trees and on the ladders. Each step was a reminder–in order to move forward I literally had to put one latch in front of the other. The carabiners kept my brain focused on a safety system that wouldn’t allow me to fall, and the constant latching also distracted me from thinking too much about falling.
The above photo also made me realize that I have not always put “safety first” and foremost in my brain when I go to exercise. This is especially true with activities that I perceive as less risky, or when I feel I am more familiar with the risks. But, on the treetop adventure, it was precisely because I was forced to put my safety first in a potentially dangerous situation that I confidently enjoyed the activity all the more (or, I suppose, experienced paralyzing fear all the less).
There is always risk in exercise, which is not an inherently bad thing. But, no matter how strange or familiar the activity may be, we are our own self-safety systems. Safety can create fun. In the future, I think that reminding myself of that fact when I go to exercise will be a good thing.
