Originally Posted by Nan Cyclist

Hi Laura, First, I may be in Michigan in April. I'll let you know as my plans progress.

Your post gave me lots of food for thought. My husband and I talked it over at great length last night. He had a powerful insight which I would like to share with you. One of the issues that he notices most often is the change in my local anxiety since I've had Parkinson's. Where is I used to exhibit normal concerns about new issues, since having Parkinson's my level of anxiety is sometimes off the charts. At one point I even had a terrifying panic attack, something which has never happened to me before, and I hope never happens again.

Why the anxiety? I'm not a psychologist or psychiatrist, so these are just my personal thoughts. As a teacher, grades seven through the University, I noticed the same problem exhibited in all ages of students. The fear of failure. As long as they didn't try to do their best, they could always tell themselves that if they did try they knew they would be successful. But there was always a fear in the back of their minds that came out kind of like this: what if I try my best and I'm not successful? That fear and anxiety caused many students to operate far below their potential. And what defined success? Were they looking for outside approval from the teacher or from their classmates or were they looking for an internal sense of satisfaction at a job well done? This issue came up again last year during RAGBRAI. One of the participants was an early onset PD patient named Andy. Andy was diagnosed with PD at age 31. Unfortunately, he argued had asthma and Crohn's disease. And he was only able to ride a recumbent tricycle, not an upright bike or a tandem. He said his goal, his measure of success, as riding the entire 450 miles across Iowa. Before the ride he told himself that anything less than that would be failure. One day on a ride it was pouring rain and very cold. Writing about a foot above the pavement, and he was not only being soaked by the rain but he was picking up the splashes from all the other riders. He didn't have a jacket and at one point he realized he was getting hypothermic. He called for the SAG wagon, which meant he didn't complete the entire 450 miles across Iowa on his bike. We talked about it later and he realized that his measure of success was quite wrong. The fact that he had the courage to try was the most important measure of success, not biking every mile across Iowa.

There have to be thousands of people with Parkinson's who are afraid to try cycling because they are afraid it may not work for them. Getting over the anxiety is 90% of the battle. Although dancing, singing, swimming and other activities may help people with Parkinson's, the only activity that has been proven through research to make a difference is cycling. You don't have to have the best and latest bike. You need to have a cadence monitor on your bike to keep within 80-90 RPMs, and you need a heart rate monitor to make sure you stay within 60 to 85% of your maximum heart rate. Then you need to define success as taking small steps toward a larger goal. It's scary. But I know you can do it.