Kickbiker - Kickbikes and Kickbiking

Information on Kickbiking

A Kickbike can be used for many different reasons. Some of the many applications include.

- Cross Training
- Weight Loss
- Exercise for the Elderly
- Rehabilitation
- Active Transportation
- Group Tours
- Green Living
- Government Use
- Campus Transportation

Kickbike for Cross Training

Cross training is used as a means of varying the routine of a workout. It is usually thought of as a way to exercise particular sets of muscles that might not be used in quite the same way in during the regular exercise routine, but, cross training including kickbiking also serves another very important service and that is the mental side of training. My wife used to swim with a club, and the workout routine consisted of doing particular sets of laps with short rests in between. In the end I used to joke with her that all she was really doing was swimming back and forth the whole time, even though the swim couch would carefully write up on a board the sets of laps, 4 x 4 laps, 2 x 8 laps etc. The reason however is to a large extent mental. If you were to say, lets swim as many laps as possible in two hours, it would be hard to get the same kind of workout that you can with a coach giving out shorter sets of laps in which the mind can focus on, and not think about the entire workout.

Cross training, like riding a kick bike, can be used as a means to keep your mental focus on your workout sharp. It can be a mental respite, allowing the mind to focus on something away from the routine, in order to provide new energy when returning to the main workout.

It can also help to prevent burnout. Often when an exercise routine is to narrowly focused for too long, it is possible to have a mental and physical fatigue that builds up and builds up until there is a complete loss of energy and will to continue. Cross training can help to relieve this kind of mental and physical fatigue by providing a different way to do and think about things for a time. Riding a Kickbike is also a lot of fun so, it can be a form of exercise that can be looked forward to as a kind of reward after a number of hard workouts.

Kickbike for Weight Loss

The kickbike has a unique ability to provide the needed exercise to help in weight loss. It is a full body balanced workout, which uses both legs, though the normal pattern of alternating strides. It uses the arms in returning the body to the ready-to-kick position, and the core of the body on each kick, because a full kick is really a full body extension. In order to loose weight two things are required, reducing the nuber of calories consumned, and increasing the calories burned. When the calories burned excedes the calories sonsumed then the body reached towards its own resources and thus looses weight. It's just that simple.

A kick bike can be a great way to burn calories, and has many advantages over cycling, running, and walking. In the case of cycling, there is a long list of advantages, but the ones that are particularly related to loosing weight include that it is easy for anyone in any condition to ride a kickbike. You are never more than one step away from the ground, and there is no uncomfortable seat. It is a far better workout than riding a bike, becaue it is a whole body workout, so it is possible on a kickbike to get a workout in less time, and in a shorter distance then on a bike.

In the case of running, it is not hard on the knees like running, it is more like cross country skiing. Kickbikes were actually invented as a form of summer cross training, for a kick sledder in Finland. Like running however, it is a great workout. I find that on a slight uphill, it feels a lot like jogging, in how much exercise if provides, and on down hills it allows for some either speed kicking, or simply some fun and rest in the workout, before the next incline or straight away.

Walking is great exercise and riding a kick bike has many of the same qualities of walking but burns more calories per hour. Walking is very easy on the body, is a full body workout, and can be done anywhere, but it doesn't burn vary many callories, so in order for it to be effective it is necessary to do a whole lot of it. A few years back there was an advertising campaign for Subeway sandwiches, in which they had a guy that lost a lot of weight, only eating Subway sandwiches, and walking. The advertisement said that all he did was so a moderate amount of light walking a day, but if you read the details, he was actualy walking something like 3 hours a day. When riding a kickbike the sensation is much like walking, in that there is no pounding on the knees, but you get a much better calorie burn.

Exercise and reducing the number of calories consumed should be the new fad diet that never goes away. The main reason that so many people struggle to get good exercise is that it is hard for exercise to not to be boring. How much more boring can you get then riding a "jerbal wheel" at the gym. Getting out in a park or on a paved path, or even on the sidewalk, (which I have had no problem with on my kickbike, but I would definitely get tickets here in New York City on a regular bike), is fun particularly if you find a kick bike partner, or group. Keeping exercise fun and social and will make it a lot easier to sustain for the long run.

Group Tours

The potential for group tours on kickbikes is huge. Not only are kickbike a great way to see things on a tour and have many advantaveves over bikes and busses, but it would also be an eco-friendly tour. Some of the many advantages of riding a kick bike versus bikes for group touring is that when you stop on a bike you have to spend time to get off the bike and we you go again, it takes time to get back on. Bikes also in may places cannot be ridden on sidewalks, but in most place kick bikes are ok.

After the Segway came out, many tours were started, using the Segways. I have seen groups of segways in Washngton DC, on the mall. The Segways are great but they take up a lot of space, and have to be recharged of course. Kickbike tours would be easy to do, could be conducted on the sidewalks, and would not require using any electic power to operate. The kick bikes are also an eye catcher, and would most likely generate a lot of interest, like the segways do. In some ways the novelty of the Segway is because of being high tech, and the novelty of the kick bike is in how simple and low tech it is.

One example of a popular kickbike tour is in Spain. The company http://www.patinete.es/uk/ has organized tours of Barcelona, spain. A video of some touring kickbikers can be found YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6wgx3PCGVo