The LuLac Edition #4,616, November 10th, 2021

 

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

Our “Write On Wednesday” logo.

This week we look at a local even in the rear view mirror called “Biketober”. The Rimes Leader had some vey good words about it and we decided to share it with you.

LET  ‘BIKETOBER’ BE YOUR PATH TO TWO-WHEEL FUN, FITNESS

We suspect people may be getting a bit tired of the co-opting of month names into portmanteaus for emphasis of some cause or idea — Movember (moustache in the 11th month), Augtober (a really warm tenth month of the year) — especially when they don’t really jibe the sound of the month’s pronunciation. Biketober, for example.

Bachtober would be fine for a baroque music festival, or mocktober for a month that feels like October but isn’t (or, as it is actually used, a fictitious month or a time to highlight non-alcoholic mocktails — maybe, say, at a Mocktoberfest). But Biketober? Bike doesn’t work, sound-wise, with any month. Besides, May has been National Bike Month since 1956, though of course, that’s one tough portmanteau. Bikemay? Maybike? Maycycle?

Despite all that, Sunday’s story about Saturday Morning’s Biketober event at Nesbitt Park boat launch merits accolades, even if the sponsor list is long enough to twist tongues: NEPA Tail on the Trail, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, the Wilkes-Barre Bike Gang, the Anthracite Bicycle Coalition and the Wilkes-Barre Department of Health.

The event — which welcomed various modes of trail-appropriate wheeled transportation — had a goal as simple as it is worthy of attention. “This is an initiative designed to get people out and to explore all the wonderful biking trails Northeastern Pennsylvania has to offer,” Pa. Environmental Council vice-president Janet Sweeney said.

“This is all about getting people out of their comfort zones,” added David Yonki from the Wilkes-Barre Department of Health. “We show them new trails, introduce them to new settings and get people up and riding.”

Biking is a wonderfully varied option for fitness, fun and pragmatic transportation. Commute to school or work. Attach some panniers and try a cycling tour of a place you always wanted to see more closely in our region, or across the country (TransAmerica route maps — offering well-tested road recommendations from coast to coast — have been available for nearly 50 years). Join morning group rides run by local bike shops.

But there are a lot of reasons to bypass road riding (driver’s looking at phones rather than the road being a good one), and to compensate, there are a lot of bike-friendly trails that let you enjoy cycling without the stress of motorized traffic. Most of them are child-friendly. Some are primarily suitable for leisure riders at slower paces because of limited width or a lot of shared use with walkers, but some are wide enough to allow serious riders to get in a solid aerobic exercise.

Cycling, like all exercise, offers plenty of benefits like aerobic fitness, weight management, mental well-being, better sleep, healthier heart and lungs, slower aging and reduced risk of cancer that comes with all of the above coupled with a healthy diet. But it also provides the boons of an inexpensive entry level activity for almost any age, low-impact on joints, a good core workout and development of balance and spatial awareness. It also adapts to almost any level of fitness and skill, especially on gently grade trails (as opposed to roads).

Full disclosure, there are a few lifelong cyclists at the Times Leader.

So if you used to bike but stopped, or keep promising yourself a renewed push to fitness consider trying it again this month, on one of the local trails like the D&L, Warrior, Back Mountain or Hazleton rails to trails, or the Levee trail along the Susquehanna. Maybe “Biketober” will be the gateway to just plain biking fun.

– Times Leader