mschwett
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
i have been inspired reading some of the other stories of how much e-bikes have contributed to people's lives - car replacement, overcoming health challenges, the pleasure of being outdoors and getting exercise, etc. so here's my story:
i'm in my mid 40s. born in texas to new yorkers who were migrating west like everyone else in the 70s. grew up in the silicon valley and as an adult have live in san francisco proper, near the top of one of the famously steep hills, where roads don't wind back and forth but the grid just goes straight up. i was an athletic kid and swam and played water polo through collegiate years. drifted away from exercise due to professional focus and etc but around 10 years ago i got into a bit of a "let's get back into fitness" competition with my brother. we both got seriously into running. had the usual spate of runner's injuries, mostly stress fractures, but i was in my 30s and i was invincible!! until... i started to get very light headed from time to time.
i figured it was dehydration - i was doing 15+ miles at a time with no real hydration, or nutrition. i tried gels and electrolyte drinks but it just kept getting worse, until one day after a run i was lying on the floor at home alone in a confused, light-headed state, thinking that i should call 911 but my muddled thought processes were getting mixed up in whether i should first try and change out of my running shorts, or not. after a half hour i felt normal again, but my wife made me go to a doctor, as women tend to do!
to make a very long story a little shorter, i was diagnosed with a rare heart rhythm condition that causes ventricular tachycardia, a dangerously rapid and uncoordinated heartbeat. the kicker - the particular condition is essentially triggered by exercise. for those with the rare genes for it, the heart muscles don't knit back together properly after the strain of exercise, causing scars that disrupt the electrical rhythm of the heart. i was immediately implanted with an ICD, which is an internal device that shocks you (like the paddles on TV!) if your heart rhythm goes awry. i was told to stop all exercise, and prescribed medications that made me feel awful. the VT kept happening, resulting in light-headedness, sometimes abrupt fainting, and the added bonus of getting shocked. i can't really describe the feeling, perhaps a bit like getting kicked from the inside of your body. by a horse. i had a procedure to try and burn away the scarred tissue, which did not work very well and was pretty much a nightmare to recover from due to complications. life was going downhill at this point, trying to continue working a high-stress, public facing job, and raise a one year old. we decided to give the procedure a try again, this time with a very specialized expert doc on the east coast. while attempting to gain access to the surface of the heart, they made a hole all the way through (oops), necessitating an emergency open heart repair. just like on TV, the guys with the saws standing there at the ready. this was, to massively understate things, a huge challenge going forward. the usual recovery was compounded by the underlying problems themselves, and for almost a year i basically could not do much beyond sit around and read. i had no energy, a pretty serious (and warranted!) fear of getting shocked, which happened many, many times. i simply could not recover and during this period had dozens upon dozens of trips to the hospital, procedures, medication changes, etc. i tried to go back to work, but was in no way capable of it. a rather abrupt bout of constant coughing led to an ER trip, which eventually led to the discovery, during a second open heart surgery, that there was a huge pericardial infection. cue up another tough recovery from surgery, this time with massive IV antibiotics and antifungals for a long time, cardiac rehab, more medication changes, etc etc.
it was the toughest two years of our lives, but thankfully things stabilized. very few shocks, i was working full time again, but still no exercise other than walking, which to be honest i felt pretty crappy doing. but life goes on, and 5 or 6 years passed by. we had another kid, settled into a routine, and then the pandemic came. i never really loved walking everywhere, out of breath and light headed, so we rode a lot of transit. that didn't seem so great anymore (and much of it shut down), so i started riding bikeshare e-bikes, upright scooters, etc, until an ad caused me to schedule a test ride of a vanmoof s3. they brought the bike to my door and off i went. seriously fun! i was hooked and ordered one right away. it arrived a few months later, and i started riding it pretty much everywhere, either by myself or with our toddler on the back and our older daughter on her own bike. after a few hundred miles i started talking to my friends who were serious cyclists, and realized that the vanmoof wasn't a machine for the long, fast rides that i was starting to enjoy. on a whim i visited a local shop and the specialized turbo creo caught my eye. i test rode it, and while it felt very strange - skinny tires, stiff frame, leaning forward - it also felt kind of awesome. it wasn't the right size and i wasn't quite ready to drop 10k on a bike, so i went to do some more research and found another closer shop that had a slightly more modestly priced one in the right size. called them up, went to ride it, had them change the stem and tires, and took it home. i was hooked. totally hooked. every free hour i had (which wasn't that many lol) i was either riding it, working on it, or reading about riding. 500 miles went by in the first month, and then another 500, and i started realizing that i could pretty carefully control exertion level almost independently of terrain and conditions thanks to the combination of gearing, speed, and motor. i got more and more ambitious, doing rides up to 120 miles, and using the motor less and less, until by six months ago i was pretty much only using it on very steep gravel climbs.
at that point, i asked myself, "why am i pushing around an extra 15lb of bike when i only rarely 'need' it?" so, i did something that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago, and ordered a "just-a-bike" for myself, a very lovely 14lb carbon road bike with all the latest fancy stuff. it showed up a month or two ago, it's amazing, and i have about 800 miles on it already. whether the carefully monitored exercise i'm doing is healthy for my damaged and atypical heart is not entirely clear - i keep my average heart rate for a ride in the 100-110 range, maximum 130, and while i've gotten stronger and a bit lighter since i started, i'm not sure my heart is actually getting much stronger. i can't (and wouldn't) do a crazy sustained climb or sprint, but i can pound out 200 watts of leg power pretty much indefinitely, with short bursts of more. i've done 80 miles with the just-a-bike, averaging around 17mph, and 60 miles with almost 5,000 feet of climbing. on a flat ride of an hour or two i can average 19 or 20mph. although i don't "need" the creo for most of my rides, i still love it after 6,000 miles in a year, would never go off-road without it, ride it to and from work often, or when i'm tackling a new route that may be more than i can otherwise handle. the vanmoof still does errand and kid outing duty, and my older daughter has graduated to an adult bike! my n+1 may be a custom titanium job with a pinion, belt drive, and rear hub motor to replace the vanmoof. TBD.
TLDR; a relatively terrible heart condition left me unable to exercise since my mid 30s. e-bikes showed me that i could actually get out there and do just the right amount of exercise for my body, and have an incredible time doing it... so much so that i eventually didn't even really need the e-part very often, but i still love e-bikes. i'm super grateful for forums like this one, bikeforums, reddit, a couple facebook groups, and of course all my snooty cyclist friends!
just-a-bike:
just-a-bike happy place:
creo:
pre-cycling, it never even occured to me that these places were a reasonably short bike ride from my front door.
in gravel mode:
on the subway home from more gravel
and props to the bike that started me on this journey! (when it works, it's great for urban errands and commuting)
the kids, with my older daughter's first adult bike!
our usual mode of urban transport:
i'm in my mid 40s. born in texas to new yorkers who were migrating west like everyone else in the 70s. grew up in the silicon valley and as an adult have live in san francisco proper, near the top of one of the famously steep hills, where roads don't wind back and forth but the grid just goes straight up. i was an athletic kid and swam and played water polo through collegiate years. drifted away from exercise due to professional focus and etc but around 10 years ago i got into a bit of a "let's get back into fitness" competition with my brother. we both got seriously into running. had the usual spate of runner's injuries, mostly stress fractures, but i was in my 30s and i was invincible!! until... i started to get very light headed from time to time.
i figured it was dehydration - i was doing 15+ miles at a time with no real hydration, or nutrition. i tried gels and electrolyte drinks but it just kept getting worse, until one day after a run i was lying on the floor at home alone in a confused, light-headed state, thinking that i should call 911 but my muddled thought processes were getting mixed up in whether i should first try and change out of my running shorts, or not. after a half hour i felt normal again, but my wife made me go to a doctor, as women tend to do!
to make a very long story a little shorter, i was diagnosed with a rare heart rhythm condition that causes ventricular tachycardia, a dangerously rapid and uncoordinated heartbeat. the kicker - the particular condition is essentially triggered by exercise. for those with the rare genes for it, the heart muscles don't knit back together properly after the strain of exercise, causing scars that disrupt the electrical rhythm of the heart. i was immediately implanted with an ICD, which is an internal device that shocks you (like the paddles on TV!) if your heart rhythm goes awry. i was told to stop all exercise, and prescribed medications that made me feel awful. the VT kept happening, resulting in light-headedness, sometimes abrupt fainting, and the added bonus of getting shocked. i can't really describe the feeling, perhaps a bit like getting kicked from the inside of your body. by a horse. i had a procedure to try and burn away the scarred tissue, which did not work very well and was pretty much a nightmare to recover from due to complications. life was going downhill at this point, trying to continue working a high-stress, public facing job, and raise a one year old. we decided to give the procedure a try again, this time with a very specialized expert doc on the east coast. while attempting to gain access to the surface of the heart, they made a hole all the way through (oops), necessitating an emergency open heart repair. just like on TV, the guys with the saws standing there at the ready. this was, to massively understate things, a huge challenge going forward. the usual recovery was compounded by the underlying problems themselves, and for almost a year i basically could not do much beyond sit around and read. i had no energy, a pretty serious (and warranted!) fear of getting shocked, which happened many, many times. i simply could not recover and during this period had dozens upon dozens of trips to the hospital, procedures, medication changes, etc. i tried to go back to work, but was in no way capable of it. a rather abrupt bout of constant coughing led to an ER trip, which eventually led to the discovery, during a second open heart surgery, that there was a huge pericardial infection. cue up another tough recovery from surgery, this time with massive IV antibiotics and antifungals for a long time, cardiac rehab, more medication changes, etc etc.
it was the toughest two years of our lives, but thankfully things stabilized. very few shocks, i was working full time again, but still no exercise other than walking, which to be honest i felt pretty crappy doing. but life goes on, and 5 or 6 years passed by. we had another kid, settled into a routine, and then the pandemic came. i never really loved walking everywhere, out of breath and light headed, so we rode a lot of transit. that didn't seem so great anymore (and much of it shut down), so i started riding bikeshare e-bikes, upright scooters, etc, until an ad caused me to schedule a test ride of a vanmoof s3. they brought the bike to my door and off i went. seriously fun! i was hooked and ordered one right away. it arrived a few months later, and i started riding it pretty much everywhere, either by myself or with our toddler on the back and our older daughter on her own bike. after a few hundred miles i started talking to my friends who were serious cyclists, and realized that the vanmoof wasn't a machine for the long, fast rides that i was starting to enjoy. on a whim i visited a local shop and the specialized turbo creo caught my eye. i test rode it, and while it felt very strange - skinny tires, stiff frame, leaning forward - it also felt kind of awesome. it wasn't the right size and i wasn't quite ready to drop 10k on a bike, so i went to do some more research and found another closer shop that had a slightly more modestly priced one in the right size. called them up, went to ride it, had them change the stem and tires, and took it home. i was hooked. totally hooked. every free hour i had (which wasn't that many lol) i was either riding it, working on it, or reading about riding. 500 miles went by in the first month, and then another 500, and i started realizing that i could pretty carefully control exertion level almost independently of terrain and conditions thanks to the combination of gearing, speed, and motor. i got more and more ambitious, doing rides up to 120 miles, and using the motor less and less, until by six months ago i was pretty much only using it on very steep gravel climbs.
at that point, i asked myself, "why am i pushing around an extra 15lb of bike when i only rarely 'need' it?" so, i did something that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago, and ordered a "just-a-bike" for myself, a very lovely 14lb carbon road bike with all the latest fancy stuff. it showed up a month or two ago, it's amazing, and i have about 800 miles on it already. whether the carefully monitored exercise i'm doing is healthy for my damaged and atypical heart is not entirely clear - i keep my average heart rate for a ride in the 100-110 range, maximum 130, and while i've gotten stronger and a bit lighter since i started, i'm not sure my heart is actually getting much stronger. i can't (and wouldn't) do a crazy sustained climb or sprint, but i can pound out 200 watts of leg power pretty much indefinitely, with short bursts of more. i've done 80 miles with the just-a-bike, averaging around 17mph, and 60 miles with almost 5,000 feet of climbing. on a flat ride of an hour or two i can average 19 or 20mph. although i don't "need" the creo for most of my rides, i still love it after 6,000 miles in a year, would never go off-road without it, ride it to and from work often, or when i'm tackling a new route that may be more than i can otherwise handle. the vanmoof still does errand and kid outing duty, and my older daughter has graduated to an adult bike! my n+1 may be a custom titanium job with a pinion, belt drive, and rear hub motor to replace the vanmoof. TBD.
TLDR; a relatively terrible heart condition left me unable to exercise since my mid 30s. e-bikes showed me that i could actually get out there and do just the right amount of exercise for my body, and have an incredible time doing it... so much so that i eventually didn't even really need the e-part very often, but i still love e-bikes. i'm super grateful for forums like this one, bikeforums, reddit, a couple facebook groups, and of course all my snooty cyclist friends!
just-a-bike:
just-a-bike happy place:
creo:
pre-cycling, it never even occured to me that these places were a reasonably short bike ride from my front door.
in gravel mode:
on the subway home from more gravel
and props to the bike that started me on this journey! (when it works, it's great for urban errands and commuting)
the kids, with my older daughter's first adult bike!
our usual mode of urban transport:
