Take The Lane

Vascular disease and cycling

I haven’t been riding for a month now, thanks to a freak of nature, and possibly over-zealous cycling. If my doctor is right, I’m never going to ride my bicycles again. I’ve been keeping this pretty much to my family and a few friends for the past month, but felt it was about time to share this information with the Take The Lane community.

Partly, it’s something you should know about me as the author of this blog on bicycling, and it could be something you might need to know about for your own health.

To read more on vascular disease and cycling ...

About cycling and vascular disease (cont'd)

In 2002, I was diagnosed with a dissection of my right iliac artery. The iliac is the artery that connects the aorta, the major artery coming from the heart, to the femoral arteries in the legs. The iliac divides around the waist and passes through the left and right hips. A whole lot of groin pain had taken me to a hospital emergency room, where a doctor ordered what was to be the first in a series of CT scans. The scans showed the dissection, a type of aneurysm.

An arterial dissection is the separation of the arterial layers, creating a second and weak-walled channel for blood within the arterial wall. On the CT scan, my right iliac artery appears to have bulged out to be about twice the size of the left iliac artery.

The CT scan also shows that both iliac arteries trace a contorted and kinked path, rather than following a straight line. The reason for the contortions could be genetics, but such torturous arterial paths apparently show up regularly in road cyclists. Some medical experts theorize that the bent-over position on a road bike, combined with the prodigious blood flow to the legs, stretches the artery.

The vascular specialist who treated me believes that two things contributed to my dissection. First was what he called my “industrial cycling.” In 2001, I had ramped up my cycling, doing many 100-kilometre days and essentially doubling my annual riding average to 6,000 kilometres. He believes that the shear forces of the increased blood flow, combined with the kinking of the artery, exploited a weakness in the vascular system and tore open an arterial wall.

I am considered one of the lucky ones. Actor John Ritter died in 2003 when a dissection travelled into a heart valve. In 2007, Barloworld rider Ryan Cox died after surgery to correct an iliac defect. I dodged the bullet. Ever since the diagnosis in 2002, I heeded the advice of my doctor and my therapist, and stopped my long tours, lowered my average speed, and cut my overall annual riding in half. Medication reduced my heart rate to reduce the blood shear forces, and I used a heart rate monitor while riding and would stop and rest when I reached my “speed limit.”

Although it was hoped that these measures would keep my aneurysm stabilized, my vascular specialist told me last month that the aneurysm is growing in diameter, and advised me to stop cycling for good. Sometime in the next few weeks, he and his colleagues will come to a conclusion about surgery. If they do operate and graft in a new length of artery, he recommends that I not consider cycling again.

This has been a rough time. Some tears of frustration, anger and denial. I am taking the bus to work, and have had to turn down several riding invitations. Although I have contacted other medical experts for additional opinions, I suspect that I’m just grasping at straws (not that that is a bad thing). I will never get rid of my “good” bike, but am slowly disposing of a lifetime of cycling gear.

I debated ending Take The Lane. Should a non-cyclist moderate a forum for other cyclists? Finally, with the encouragement of others, I decided to continue the blog. My interest in cycling dates back to my childhood, and has continued as a cycle tourist and cycle commuter, a journalist who has covered cycling events, and a volunteer for both professional and charitable cycling events. Even if I am not able to ride a bike, I love talking about cycling, and there is much to continue sharing with you.

And then there was the possibility of learning something from this experience. Until this, I had no idea that I even had an iliac artery. Nor did I know that cyclists can be prone to iliac dissections and endofibrosis (where the iliac artery walls can become thickened and restrict blood flow – Ryan Cox’s problem). Since my story was first posted on a website for those with abdominal aortic aneurysms, I have been in contact with other recreational cyclists who have had dissections and aneurysms, but have found very little information on the subject.

With that in mind, I’m creating a new category in Take The Lane called Aneurysms and Cycling, where I’ll post relevant items as I find them. Here’s the first one: a link to a Velo News article online, which, while not dealing directly with dissections, explains why the iliac artery can be put under stress while cycling.

I don’t recommend unnecessary testing, or testing for the sake of testing. If your riding is limited, you likely have no need to consult your physician. If you practise “industrial cycling,” – competitive cycling, long-distance or endurance cycling, hill-climbing or other strenuous forms of cycling ‑ you should probably talk to your doctor about an ultrasound to map your own vascular health. It could be a baseline for future testing.

Or perhaps you have noticed some cramping or loss of power while on a serious club ride. When you rest or stand, it disappears. You may have a vascular condition that requires some attention. Make an appointment and see your doctor.

I hope this isn’t too much navel-gazing. I intend to remain an active thinker about the larger cycling community and our two-wheeled future, and hope to be able to continue to share my thoughts with you, and hope that you will continue to share your thoughts with me.

Mexico City's cycling experiment

Every Sunday, some of the biggest streets in Mexico City become a paradise for bicycles.

The Los Angeles Times has done a nice piece on the experiment. More and more cities are finding ways to make room for bicycles. Here's what one of the biggest cities in the world is doing.

Mexico City's Sunday cycling

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

MEXICO CITY ‑ On wheels, we charge: a vast and exultant army of cycling, skating, spinning, scooting, sweating warriors in the thrill of conquest.

We rule this city ‑ at least for a few hours.

Every Sunday morning, some of the biggest streets in car-flooded Mexico City are handed over to bicyclists, who roll in by the tens of thousands. Joining them are skateboarders, Rollerbladers, toddlers on push toys and parents behind strollers in what has become a weekly festival on (small) wheels.

The leftist government of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard launched the program in 2007, barring cars, trucks and buses from the regal Paseo de la Reforma and other streets around historic downtown. Once a month, the route is expanded to form a 20-mile engine-free circuit called the Cicloton.

The cyclist’s gain is the motorist’s loss. But city officials seek to limit traffic snarls by opening alternative routes and letting cars across key downtown junctions once the bikes have passed. On short stretches, cars and bikes share the street in rare harmony, separated by orange traffic cones. (If only the exhaust fumes stayed in their own lane.)

Though mocked by some as a political gimmick, the Sunday ride has proved highly popular since opening in May 2007. The shorter downtown rides routinely draw 10,000 or more participants, and the Cicloton as many as 70,000.

It’s an upside-down day. For a change, cars are the intruders while cyclists get a leisurely, intimate view that makes this huge and tumultuous city seem, well, not so huge and tumultuous.

We strap on helmets and spend two to three hours on a citywide loop: zooming past the glassy high rises and triumphal statues of Reforma, through graffiti-spattered precincts where sidewalk stands send up a tang of raw seafood, along normally jammed commercial boulevards lined with chain stores and billboard ads.

There are gleaming road bikes and creaking wrecks that appear to have predated the 1968 Olympics here. Signs abound of classic Mexican innovations, like the tiny wooden chair converted, by straps and blind faith, into a child’s bicycle seat.

The party mood is accentuated by a string of roadside tent stations set up to offer everything from open-air exercise classes to refills on water. You can get your bike tire fixed for free, too.

Mostly, there is an air of relief in the sprawling megalopolis, whose 20 million residents spend much of the week dueling each other on the roads.

“Traffic is chaotic. People are racing around, stressed. Cars don’t respect bicyclists,” said Edgar Campos, 37, who slowly pedaled an undersized bike near the leafy downtown park known as the Alameda Central. “Today is a completely different day.”

His twin daughters, 11, rode bikes, along with a 10-year-old son. Another son, 14, shuffled along on roller skates.

For Campos, even police are a welcome sight on these Sundays. Usually viewed as more interested in seeking payoffs than protecting residents, the officers are posted at intersections to keep cars at bay.

“It’s one day,” Campos conceded. “Still, it’s difficult to get even that.”

If biking here feels like a novelty, it’s not hard to see why.

While it is safe to ride in the relative calm of certain neighborhoods or a few big parks, venturing into Mexico City traffic can feel like the cycling equivalent of the running of the bulls. About four million vehicles jam the streets daily, and drivers appear to share a guiding tenet: Anything goes if it gets you there quicker.

Motorists switch lanes suddenly and dart around corners without using blinkers. Red lights are often treated as suggestions. Newcomers may gasp the first time they see cars darting in opposite directions around big traffic circles.

Because there is not much of a cycling culture, drivers pay little heed. On a bike, you’re basically on your own. As a result, few people try. Polls show that 1 in 100 Mexico City residents gets around by bicycle.>

“The main barrier to people using bicycles as a form of transportation is the fear people have of getting in an accident caused by a vehicle,” said Jesus Gil Aldeco, who belongs to Bicitekas, a group that promotes cycling as a daily transportation.

Mexico City has few bike lanes, and plans for a 400-mile network snaking through the city are stuck in bureaucracy. With slim odds of improvement any time soon, Bicitekas plans to open a school to train bicyclists on how to survive the hostile conditions. A better solution, cyclists say, is to create a climate in which motorists respect riders ‑ or fear prosecution if they don’t.

“The culture of the road is very poor,” said Gil.<

Riding through the historic downtown, we bump over cobblestone streets a few blocks from where the Aztecs worshipped, then wheel down a stretch of cut-rate dress shops thumping with music.

Beyond markets selling Dora the Explorer pinatas and glittery fabric masks worn by “lucha libre” wrestlers, the route becomes grittier, following a power line and drab apartment clusters along a long flat roadway before the first climb appears.

A hill? Hardly. It’s a highway overpass. On top, Raul Lopez is catching his breath and peering out over an outdoor subway station and eight-lane highway leading away from town. From below comes the low roar of cars and buses, the wail of an ambulance.

Lopez, 54, knows well the hostile ways of these roads. He drives a bus. For six days a week he’s a man in combat, piloting his boxy vehicle through choked streets along the city’s edge.

On this day, though, Lopez and his wife, Marta, 53, a nurse, are pedaling Mexico City’s streets with the sweaty abandon of schoolchildren.

Soon, he’ll slip back into the driver’s seat for another week’s stresses. But right now, astride his shopworn 10-speed, his wife beside him on a road free of car traffic for miles ahead, Lopez feels good. Better, actually.

“Perfect,” he said.

Teen fundraiser gets an amazing bicycle

There are occasions when the strands of my life intersect, and so it is that this week’s column in The Waterloo Region Record is about something that might interest Take The Lane readers.

The column leaves out some elements of specific interest to cyclists, so I thought I’d share them here.

Briefly, the column is about Morgan MacPhee, the 13-year-old Elmira teen who raised $10,000 in his attempt to come up with the $25,000 necessary to be a full participant in the Ride with Lance earlier this year. Though he fell short of the goal, the organizers were impressed enough to offer him a “participation lite” package, including riding a short bit on the 120 K route.

The bike he used was older than he is: a blue and grey 1989 Kuwahara Caravan touring bike that belongs to his grandfather, Doug MacPhee. The well-worn bike caught the eye of Reinhold Schuster, a retired University of Waterloo engineering prof and inveterate bicycle tinkerer. Schuster’s first job in North America was in a bike shop in Bismarck, N.D. back in the 1950s, and he has maintained his love of bicycles and the bicycle culture.

He felt that Morgan had the spark, too, and decided to build him a bike.

He tapped his contacts in the local cycling community for help. He got a Specialized Allez frame (minus the odd part) from Gary Bonneville at McPhail’s in Waterloo. Schuster had convinced Mike Kelly of Waterloo to upgrade his component gruppo some time ago to Campagnolo, and still had Kelly’s old Shimano Ultegra gruppo in his bike workshop. “Take it,” said Kelly, “I’m not using it.”

Schuster got a set of Easton wheels on eBay from Shaw Hasyj of Cambridge, who threw in a $400 Campagnolo Record carbon seatpost when he heard about the story of the bike build.

Others who had been on the Ride with Lance or who knew Schuster – Bob Frank, Don Andrews, Phil Pfeifer and IanCook -- kicked in the cash to get the Easton handlebars, the Selle San Marco saddle, the ITM Millennium stem and the other bits needed to finish the bike.

Morgan got the bike Wednesday, and was as excited as a 13-year-old who mostly delivers one-word answers to questions could be. (Here's Morgan getting his bike from Schuster. Is Schuster a cycling fan? On the wall behind him is a Livestrong jersey signed by Tour de France champs Lance Armstrong and Eddy Merckx.)

Is Morgan a road racer in the making? I don’t know. He has loaded up on the kit – helmet, shoes, jersey, etc – and even convinced some of his friends to try road biking. He likes mountain biking, too. Maybe he’s an enthusiast – and we need more of those among the young -- who was lucky enough to connect with other enthusiasts who gave him a tremendous launch into the hobby that they love.

Share the Road ride takes the next step

The third annual Share the Road Ride for Greg is growing in scope and intention.

The ride commemorates the loss of the Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Greg Stobbart, who was killed in 2006 by a motorist who already had a series of driving convictions. The ride, launched by Stobbart's wife Eleanor McMahon, was meant to encourage cycling and to focus attention on the need for regulatory changes regarding cycling in Ontario.

This year's ride is Sunday, 10 a.m., starting from the Milton GO station, with distances of 20K, 50K and 100K. Registration details can be found at the Share the Road website.

Also this year, the ride will mark the beginning of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, a new cycling advocacy group that has resulted from McMahon's hard work and networking around the province. Her intention of making Ontario a safer place for cycling may result this fall in some changes to the provincial Highway Traffic Act.

With the collapse of the Cycle Ontario Alliance this year, there's a big vacuum that the Share the Road coalition could fill. Of course, it will only attract the attention of the policy-makers if it has a solid and vocal membership. It's really up to Ontario's cyclists to make that happen.   

Sun columnist tells cyclists where they belong

I don't know Joe Warmington at The Toronto Sun.

He may be a frothing loon (like a few people at The Sun), or he may just be a cunning writer who plays to some of the frothing loons who read The Sun.

You can read today's rant about transportation funding and bicycles and decide for yourself.

Critical mass resumes

Ah, fall. The departure of the birds and the return of the idealists -- that is, the students that swell every social justice event and special indie film screening.

The social justice event I'm thinking of is Critical Mass, this Friday at the bandshell in Waterloo Park, at 5 p.m.

You can bet that the dreadlocked free spirits, baggy-panted anti-war activists and late-blooming flower children will be joined by federal candidates looking to make an impression. And that is as it should be. It's a heady stew of ideas and intentions.

But just let me throw in my wet blanket. Although I cannot be there due to work requirements and other issues, if I were there, I would: let the buses pass the parade (they are members of the multi-modal alternative transportation system, too) and try not to tick off too many motorists. No one needs to wear the scars of a road rage incident, and it will be their support (and tax dollars) that will help change the transportation structure.

Motorists need to think of cyclists as cool, not irritating.

More on the street racing death

Canadian Press has moved a story with more information about the Saskatchewan cyclist alleged to have been killed in a street racing incident. You can see the whole story here.

Late night exercise proves fatal

By Chris Purdy, The Canadian Press
SASKATOON — When Barry Grosse couldn’t sleep at night, the retired school principal headed outside for some exercise on the near deserted streets of Saskatoon.
The 64-year-old was doing exactly that, riding his bicycle about a dozen blocks from home, when he was apparently struck from behind and killed by one of two racing sports cars just before 3 a.m. Wednesday.
“It was just so senseless. Didn’t have to happen, didn’t need to happen,’’ his sister-in-law Theresa Grosse said Wednesday afternoon, as distraught family members filed in and out of the man’s home.
Police said both cars fled the scene.
Another motorist who was stopped at a nearby traffic light and witnessed the incident, drove off in search of police and flagged down a patrol car.
Within hours, and acting on a tip, officers arrested the alleged driver of the vehicle that hit Grosse. A male passenger in the car was also taken into custody for questioning and later released.
A 20-year-old man is to appear in court Thursday on one count of hit and run and one count of criminal negligence causing death by street racing
He had been wanted on an outstanding warrant for traffic offences.
Alyson Edwards, police spokeswoman, said officers found the man’s red Trans Am abandoned about two kilometres from the crash site. The passenger side of its front windshield was smashed and caved in.
Edwards said Grosse was thrown quite a distance from his bike and was unconscious when officers found him at 8th Street and Preston Avenue.
A white ball cap was found on the opposite side of the intersection from the bike, its bent rear tire torn from the frame.
Grosse was pronounced dead at hospital.
“He was an amazing person,’’ said his nephew, Phillip Grosse. “Everybody loved him.’’
He said his uncle, married with a grown daughter in Vancouver, worked as a teacher for many years before retiring as principal of the school in Vanscoy, a village southwest of Saskatoon.
Grosse was also an avid golfer and a familiar face at the Saskatoon Golf and Country Club.
He had an early tee time set for Wednesday morning. His golf buddies called family members, worried when he didn’t show up, said his nephew.
He said Grosse suffered from a sleep disorder, called sleep apnea, which often kept him up at night.
“To keep his mind occupied and body moving and tire himself, out he’d go jogging or ride his bike,’’ said Theresa.
With a laugh, she added that police had pulled him over a few times to ask him what he was doing out at that hour.
She said she doesn’t believe it was his practice to wear a bike helmet, and police couldn’t confirm whether they found one at the scene.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,’’ said Theresa.
She said Grosse suffered severe head injuries.
Police are continuing to search for an older, grey Ford Mustang, the second car spotted racing with the Trans Am.
Edwards said the driver of that car could also face criminal charges.
It’s not known if the two drivers knew each other before the race, she said.
Police collision analysts took measurements and gathered evidence at the scene throughout the day. Red-light cameras were recently set up at the busy intersection, and Edwards said officers may use video footage from them as part of the investigation.
Chris Regier, who works at a nearby Mr. Lube, said 8th Street was recently repaved and is a tempting draw for racers. The straight, double-lane roadway — lined with big-box stores, restaurants and bars — is one of the busiest in the city.
“Eighth Street’s always been known for kind of street racing,’’ said Regier, 19. “But no one really does street race. They kind of just pretend. They just go from light to light.’’
Edwards said Wednesday’s death is the first in recent memory related to street racing in Saskatoon.
“Street racing has been a problem in Saskatoon as it has in most Canadian cities, kind of off and on. We see it peak a bit in the warmer months,’’ she said.
Officers have handed out 24 tickets and warnings for stunting or racing so far this year, said Edwards.
Street racing has been a serious problem in other cities.
Earlier this year, a Winnipeg man was sentenced to two years in jail for killing an innocent woman during a high-speed street race.
Last May, the Ontario government passed street-racing and stunt-driving legislation that increased maximum fines to $10,000 — the highest penalty in Canada. The laws also allow police to automatically seize cars belonging to those caught driving faster than 50 kilometres an hour above the posted speed limit.
Since 2002, police in British Columbia have been able to immediately impound a car for up to a month while drivers face a fine of up to $2,000 or six months in jail.