Laura, You have some great questions about bikes. I'm certainly not an expert, but I can give a little information at least.

Jay first noticed the connection between forced pace cycling and pd while riding a tandem across Iowa in the week-long ride, RAGBRAI. That was on a standard road tandem. His initial tests were done on the same kind of bikes that were mounted on bike trainers with magnetic Cyclops trainers (which is the kind I use inside). Now, in the second round of tests, they are using Theracycles instead of tandems. I'm not sure what system is used by Theracycle. However, the owner of the company contacted me a couple of weeks ago to ask specific questions about my experience to hopefully help them make the Theracycle more responsive to the needs of pd patients. So they're not quite there yet, but good enough to use in tests.

As I noted on another post, I'm working with folks here to try to develop a $200-$300 bike refit that will allow the pwp to get enough boost from electricity to get to 80-90 rpm while still ensuring that the pwp is maintaining the proper heart rate. Tricky stuff.

On a personal note, I had an odd experience this week. One day both my finger and toe on the right side froze while I was riding (nothing new there), but the finger kept it up all day, accompanied by significant pain in my arm. The next morning I awoke to no tremor and no pain. I don't recall the last time I awoke to no tremor and I put off taking my meds for two hours. The no tremor lasted for half the day. Since then, I've had tremor, but no feeling of electrical shock in the arm. Go figure.